LAS VEGAS — There’s a tradition at Hendrick Motorsports to ring the winning bell throughout the North Carolina shop after every NASCAR victory.
As motivation to have the best year of his career, Kyle Larson’s team decided to bring a bell on the road to avoid having to wait to return to Charlotte to celebrate every achievement he plans for this season.
The bell got its first ring Sunday when Larson won his second consecutive race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to keep Chevrolet undefeated and give Rick Hendrick his second victory in the first three NASCAR Cup Series races of the season.
Hendrick Motorsports is celebrating its 40th anniversary this season and opened the year with William Byron winning the Daytona 500.
“That bell will travel with us every week and we’ll be ringing it loud and proud,” Larson said.
Larson won for the third time in his career at Las Vegas, where in 2021 he got his first win driving for Hendrick following a nearly yearlong suspension in 2020. Larson also won in the No. 5 Chevy at Las Vegas last October in the playoffs.
Larson held off Tyler Reddick for his 24th career Cup victory. In a Toyota for 23XI Racing, Reddick chased Larson for the final several laps but could never find enough room to make a move for the pass. Larson’s margin of victory was 0.441 seconds over Reddick.
“I knew Tyler was going to be the guy to beat from the first stage” Larson said. “He was really fast there. Cool to get a win here at Vegas again. Back-to-back, swept all the stages again. Can’t ask for more than that.”
Reddick was extremely frustrated after finishing second and believed Larson as the leader controlled the race because of the rules of NASCAR’s new car.
“Kyle did a really good job there taking away pretty much every option I had there to close the gap,” Reddick said. “Second sucks, that is for sure. You have to run up front all day long, and when asked about what we need to do to get better, that’s the very thing, and we didn’t do it. We were pretty evenly matched, so I don’t know if there was anything that I really could’ve done to get around him.
“He would have had to make a big mistake or had some traffic kind of knock his wind around. It’s a solid effort for our team, that’s how we need to run, but I don’t like running second.”
Chevrolet also has wins this year by Byron in the Daytona 500 and Daniel Suarez last week at Atlanta for Trackhouse Racing. Chevrolet has won eight of nine national series races to open the year.
Ford and Toyota are both using new cars this year.
The Chevrolet contingent right now is as tight as it’s ever been, and the key partner groups and even outside of that are working really good together because we know we have very little margin here,” Hendrick team president and general manager Jeff Andrews said. “We know we’re up against a new car with Ford and Toyota. We have to do our best to work together and keep advancing this car.
“We’re obviously early on in the season here, a lot of racing to go, and they will get there. Anytime that you change a platform on those cars as much as they’ve had, it’s going to take a little bit of time.”
Reigning NASCAR champion Ryan Blaney was third for Team Penske in a Ford, followed by Trackhouse driver Ross Chastain, Ty Gibbs in a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing and Las Vegas native Noah Gragson in his best finish since joining Stewart-Haas Racing.
Martin Truex Jr. for JGR was seventh, followed by teammate Denny Hamlin, Penske driver and pole-sitter Joey Logano and Byron. Suarez, last week’s winner, was 11th.
Larson swept all three stages and led 181 of the 267 laps. The win made Larson the Cup Series points leader with an eight-point cushion over Blaney.
BUESCHER PENALTY TO COME
Chris Buescher and RFK Racing are facing penalties after a tire fell off Buescher’s Ford early in the race.
“We lost the nut and lost half the wheel,” Buescher said. “I think the tire stayed up under the fender. It looks like the nut came off and something in the suspension actually cut the wheel in half.”
The penalty will be the suspension of two crew members from Buescher’s team for the next two races.
DRIVE FOR DIVERSITY SUCCESS
Larson’s win continued a streak of success for graduates of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program.
It started when Nick Sanchez won the Truck Series race to open the season at Daytona, and then Suarez won the Cup Series race last week at Atlanta.
“The D4D program was good for my career. Kind of gave me my introduction into stock car racing and gained a lot of experience, not only on the racetrack but off of it, as well,” Larson said. “I’m sure it’s changed quite a bit since 2012, but regardless, they’ve produced some great drivers, and it’s cool to see.
“Hopefully, we can add some more D4D guys on to the new championship list down the road.”
UP NEXT
NASCAR goes to Phoenix Raceway, where Byron is the defending race winner. Chastain won in November on the day Blaney won his first Cup title.
The Giants are sending starter Jordan Hicks and 23-year-old lefty Kyle Harrison, among others, to Boston in exchange, sources said.
Devers, 28, is in just the second season of a 10-year, $313.5 million contract he signed to stay in Boston in January 2023, however his relationship with the team suffered a significant blow after the star third baseman was reportedly blindsided by a move to designated hitter in the spring.
Tensions flared again last month after Devers refused an offer from the team to move him to first base after starting first baseman Triston Casas was ruled out for the season with a knee injury.
It reached a point where Red Sox owner John Henry met with the disgruntled star, making a rare trip to meet the team on the road and smooth things over after Devers’ pointed comments about the request to switch positions again.
Hicks and Harrison give a pitching-starved Red Sox team more depth on their staff while Devers provides a huge boost to a middling Giants offense.
Devers has more than 200 career home runs to his name and has a .894 OPS for Boston this season.
Manager Dave Roberts told reporters Sunday that Ohtani would throw another simulated game in the coming days that could “potentially” be his last one, and a source told ESPN’s Buster Olney that Ohtani should join the Dodgers’ rotation “sooner rather than later,” potentially within the week.
Ohtani took a big step forward during his most recent simulated game at Petco Park on Tuesday, throwing 44 pitches over the course of three innings against a couple of lower-level minor league players. Ohtani’s fastball reached the mid- to upper-90s, and he exhibited good command of his off-speed pitches in what amounted to his third time facing hitters. Afterward, Roberts said there was a “north of zero” chance Ohtani could join the rotation before the All-Star break.
Because of his two-way designation, the Dodgers can carry Ohtani as an extra pitcher, which means he can throw two to three innings and have someone pitch after him as a piggyback starter. At this point, it seems that is the Dodgers’ plan.
The Dodgers’ pitching staff has again been plagued by injury, with 14 pitchers on the injured list, including four starting pitchers the team was heavily counting on for 2025 — Blake Snell, Tony Gonsolin, Roki Sasaki and Tyler Glasnow.
If Ohtani returns in July — the likely outcome at this point — he will be 22 months removed from a second repair of his ulnar collateral ligament.
The update isn’t as optimistic for Sasaki. He paused his throwing program and is set for a lengthy layoff. Sasaki has not pitched in a game since May 9 and is not part of the team’s long-term pitching plans this season.
“I think that’s what the mindset should be,” Roberts said. “Being thrust into this environment certainly was a big undertaking for him, and now you layer in the health part and the fact he’s a starting pitcher, knowing what the build-up [required to return] entails … I think that’s the prudent way to go about it.”
Sasaki, 23, went 1-1 with a 4.72 ERA in eight starts after joining the Dodgers from the Pacific League’s Chuba Lotte Marines, averaging less than 4⅓ innings per start. He walked 22 and struck out 24 in 34⅓ innings, and his fastball averaged 95.7 mph, down 3-4 mph from his average in Japan.
Roberts said Sasaki was pain free when he resumed throwing in early June, but the pitcher was shut down after feeling discomfort this past week. Sasaki recently received a cortisone injection in the shoulder; Roberts said no further scans are planned.
“I don’t think it’s pain,” Roberts said. “I don’t know if it’s discomfort, if it’s tightness, if he’s just not feeling strong, whatever the adjective you want to use. That’s more of a question for Roki, as far as the sensation he’s feeling.
“He’s just not feeling like he can ramp it up, and we’re not going to push him to do something he doesn’t feel good about right now.”
BOSTON — Aaron Judge blamed himself for swinging at pitches outside the strike zone as the New York Yankees were swept in a three-game series against the Boston Red Sox.
“You got to swing at strikes,” Judge said after going 1-for-12 in the series, which Boston completed with a 2-0 victory on Sunday.
Judge struck out three or more times in three straight games for only the third time in his major league career.
“That usually helps any hitter when you swing at strikes,” Judge added. “Definitely some pitches off the edge or off the edge in, you know, taking some hacks just trying to make something happen.”
Judge had a tying solo homer in the opener Friday night but struck out nine times as the Yankees were swept in a series for the first time this season.
New York scored only four runs in the three games, matching its fewest in a three-game series at Fenway Park, on June 20-22, 1916 and on Sept. 28-30, 1922.
“It’s very hard,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said of facing Judge. “He’s so good at what he does. We used our fastballs in the right spots, we got some swing and misses.”
“Throughout the years we’ve been aggressive with him,” Cora added. “Sometimes he gets us, sometimes we do a good job with that. It’s always fun to compete against the best, and, to me, he’s the best in the business right now.”
Judge’s major league-leading average dipped to .378.
“I don’t think much of it,” teammate Ben Rice said. “If I could have that guy hitting every single at-bat even if he’s not at his best, I would do it. I’m sure he’ll bounce back. He’ll be all right.”
Judge faced Garrett Whitlock with two on in the eighth Sunday and bounced into an inning-ending double play.
“He’s one of the greatest hitters in the world,” Whitlock said. “It’s special to watch him play and everything. We tried to execute and had some execution this weekend.”