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AVONDALE, Ariz. — Kevin Harvick pulled onto pit road after his final race as a full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver, climbed out of his seat, grabbed a water from his 11-year-old son Keelan, slapped the boy on the back and posed a question.

“What now?” he said with a grin.

The 60-time NASCAR Cup Series winner put a coda on his 23-year career with a seventh place finish at Phoenix Raceway. The 47-year-old said at the beginning of the year that this would be his final season and he’ll move into the Fox Sports broadcast booth for 2024.

But for one more day on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Phoenix, he was a racecar driver. His No. 4 Ford Mustang started on the inside of the second row, complete with a “Harvick” emblazoned across the hood as part of the Busch Light logo.

It’s no surprise Harvick was competitive in Phoenix, which has always been one of his best tracks. He’s a nine-time winner and closed his career with 21 straight top 10s. He even took a brief lead in his final race, passing William Byron on lap 93 as the crowd roared from the stands.

The Bakersfield, California, native said it’s always been a big deal to be good at a track near the West Coast.

“As you look at Phoenix, it’s always just a little extra special,” Harvick said. “Everyone knows how much it means to me to do good here. A lot of people have been here since the mid-’90s watching me race. So you don’t want to come here and suck.

“But to do that 21 times, win nine races, I’m so fortunate.”

Harvick raised a toast to his crew after the race and fielded congratulations from a handful of drivers, including teammate Chase Briscoe. After that, he sat on a cooler, soaking in the atmosphere that was a little celebratory but also a little bittersweet.

“It really hasn’t been about wins and losses, but you never want to flop around,” Harvick said. “To be able to lead laps in the last race, it tells you how competitive we still are.”

Three-time NASCAR champion and Hall of Famer Tony Stewart, the co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, brought Harvick to the team in 2014. The partnership was productive immediately – Harvick won his only Cup championship in his first season and would go on to win 37 races over 10 years.

Stewart said on Saturday that he’d “lose a little sleep” thinking about Harvick’s last race.

“Kevin Harvick is probably the most well-rounded driver out there,” Stewart said. “Obviously, he’s a great racecar driver, but he knows how to build championship-winning teams, putting the right people in place, he understands the business side of it, he understands the marketing side of it.

“I would challenge anyone to find someone in the series as a driver that can do all those aspects as well as Kevin.”

Harvick’s departure is part of big changes for Stewart-Haas Racing heading into 2024. The team is also losing Aric Almirola, a 39-year-old who wants to scale back to a partial schedule after 12 full-time seasons and three wins in the Cup Series. Josh Berry will take over Harvick’s seat in 2024 while Almirola’s replacement hasn’t been named.

“Aric’s just calm, cool and collected all the time,” Stewart said. “But he’s a great family man, great husband, great father and great friend. I’m excited for both these guys, I’m excited for their next journey, but it is sad that 24 hours for now it’ll all be over.”

Harvick made his Cup Series debut the week after Dale Earnhardt‘s fatal crash in the 2001 season-opening Daytona 500. He was supposed to be eased into Cup competition by Richard Childress Racing and mentored by the seven-time champion Earnhardt, and instead was his emergency replacement.

Those early days weren’t easy. The then 25-year-old got into altercations with rivals, was combative with NASCAR officials and the media, and generally made the situation he’d inherited more difficult. Now he’s a former Cup champion whose 60 career victories, good for 10th on NASCAR’s all-time wins list.

Harvick is notoriously stoic, but even he became a little emotional thinking about more than two decades of excellence. When a reporter reminded him that his two children wished him luck over the radio before the race, Harvick couldn’t totally contain the emotion.

“Yeah, well, that’s not normal, so they probably loved that and um … so,” he said.

Then he turned and walked away. A few tears followed and he hugged his wife.

“For me, it’s been a great ride,” Harvick said. “I don’t have anything to complain about.”

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Twins call on RHP Matthews to keep streak going

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Twins call on RHP Matthews to keep streak going

The Minnesota Twins recalled right-hander Zebby Matthews from Triple-A St. Paul and inserted him into the rotation for their road game Sunday against the Milwaukee Brewers.

The 24-year-old Matthews closed out last season in the Twins’ rotation and fashioned a 1-4 record with a 6.69 ERA in nine starts. He has produced a 2-1 record with a 1.93 ERA in seven starts for St. Paul, which includes 38 strikeouts and nine walks over 32⅔ innings.

The Twins, who carry a 13-game winning streak into Sunday’s game, also selected the contract of outfielder Carson McCusker, a 26-year-old who has yet to make his big league debut. The 6-foot-8, 250-pound slugger is hitting .350 with 10 homers and 36 RBIs in 38 games this season for St. Paul.

The task ahead of Matthews is to try to continue a hot pitching streak that has seen the Twins record three straight shutouts, including in the first two games of the Brewers series. Minnesota enters Sunday with a collective 3.15 ERA that ranks No. 3 in the majors.

The active stretch of 33 straight shutout innings is the longest such streak in Twins history, which began in 1961. They had three longer shutout streaks when they were the Washington Senators, but the most recent of those took place in 1913.

To accommodate Matthews’ arrival, the Twins placed reliever Danny Coulombe (left forearm extensor strain) on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to Thursday. Coulombe has yet to allow a run this season in 16⅔ innings.

To make room for McCusker, the Twins shifted rookie Luke Keaschall to the 60-day IL to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Keaschall fractured his right forearm April 25 against the Los Angeles Angels.

The Associated Press and Field Level Media contributed to this report.

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Cora to skip game to attend daughter’s graduation

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Cora to skip game to attend daughter's graduation

BOSTON — Red Sox manager Alex Cora will miss Monday’s series opener against the New York Mets at Fenway Park so he can attend his daughter’s college graduation.

Cora’s daughter, Camila, will be graduating from nearby Boston College.

“It’s going to be a very special day — one that I’m not going to miss,” Cora said before Sunday’s game vs. the Atlanta Braves. “I 100% will miss the game for that. I will do that any given day. It’s going to be a very special day for us.”

Cora reflected on how the time has seemed to go quickly and spoke about how fast his daughter seemed to grow up.

“It went fast, it went really fast,” Cora said of her time in college. “For a girl from divorced parents, her mom did an amazing job, staying the course while I was playing and coaching and doing my ESPN thing. … She’s actually a reflection of her. I appreciate everything she’s done for her and for us.”

Asked if he’ll be able to hold back his emotions at the ceremony, Cora smiled and said “We’ll see,” before bringing up memories of when his daughter was at the 2018 World Series victory celebration and a postseason series wrap-up win over Tampa Bay in ’21 at Fenway.

“It’s going to be an amazing day. It happened fast,” he said. “You put everything into perspective, you go back to the videos of ’18, she was a little girl.

“Then you go back to ’21 when she hopped onto the field when we beat Tampa, she was still a little girl. Now, she’s not a little girl,” he said. “She’s a woman. She had fun with it. She’s a great student and the future’s bright for her.”

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Brewers send struggling starter Myers to minors

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Brewers send struggling starter Myers to minors

MILWAUKEE — Brewers pitcher Tobias Myers is going back to the minors as he continues to struggle to match the success he enjoyed as a rookie last year.

The Brewers optioned Myers to Triple-A Nashville on Sunday while selecting right-handed pitcher Easton McGee from Triple-A and transferring left-handed pitcher Connor Thomas to the 60-day injured list.

Myers is 1-1 with a 4.95 ERA in six appearances, including five starts. He allowed four runs over 3 2/3 innings in a 7-0 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Saturday.

The right-hander had gone 9-6 with a 3.00 ERA last season and was selected the Brewers’ most valuable pitcher by the Milwaukee chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America. He closed that season by pitching five scoreless innings in the decisive Game 3 of the NL Wild Card Series against the New York Mets, a game the Brewers lost 4-2 by allowing four runs in the ninth.

“I love the kid, man,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said after Saturday’s game. “You saw it in Game 3, that’s in there. So we’ve got to get back to that.”

The Brewers had optioned Myers to Nashville a week ago, but he didn’t actually pitch there before rejoining the big-league club after left-hander José Quintana went on the injured list with a left shoulder issue. Now he’s heading back to Nashville.

Myers entered Saturday having walked 10 batters over 16 1/3 innings. He didn’t walk anyone Saturday, but gave up a career-high 11 hits.

“My goal was to fill the zone up and kind of get away from the walks I’ve been dealing with,” Myers said after the game. “I think I just filled it up a little too much.”

McGee went 1-0 with a 3.44 ERA and 20 strikeouts over 18 1/3 innings in 13 relief appearances with Nashville.

McGee appeared in one game for Tampa Bay in 2022 and one game for Seattle in 2023.In the only two games he has pitched in the big leagues, McGee has allowed just one unearned run over 9 2/3 innings while striking out three and allowing five hits and one walk.

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