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LAS VEGAS — NASCAR on Saturday displayed a clearly altered glove that Joey Logano wore in qualifying at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where aerodynamic-deflecting alterations were so obvious it looked as if he was wearing part of an amphibious costume.

The black glove for Logano’s left hand had webbing made of an unspecified material in between every finger. The theory is that Logano, who qualified second at Atlanta, had the glove altered in order to place his hand out his window as an aerodynamic blocker during qualifying last weekend.

At Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday, NASCAR would not speculate on the motivation of the two-time Cup champion or Team Penske, which did not appeal a penalty imposed on Logano. NASCAR said it discovered the glove during a random inspection — and not, as Denny Hamlin suggested, in a tipoff from a rival team — and NASCAR did not know if Logano was wearing the glove when he won the pole for the season-opening Daytona 500.

Rival driver Corey Lajoie didn’t flinch when asked Saturday if Logano was wearing the glove in Daytona 500 qualifying — “yes,” he said — and insisted Team Penske would have done computer simulation on the glove before using it on the track. LaJoie estimated the webbed glove was worth three counts of drag for Logano.

Logano, who won the pole for Sunday’s race at Las Vegas wearing legal gloves, declined to comment on if he wore the webbed glove when winning Team Penske’s first Daytona 500 pole. He said he was not forced to wear the glove by his team.

“As a driver, you work with the team and, hey, I’m going to take a portion of responsibility of that too, obviously. I should. I put the glove on,” Logano said. “I didn’t build the glove or make it on my own. I can’t sew. We had conversations about it.

“What I’m proud about with this team is, yeah, that was a tough situation for us,” he continued. “It was hard to go through and embarrassing for sure, but the fact we got through it and just move on and focus on the next week, we showed that we have some speed in our race car and to be able to put it on the pole here, to me, is a statement type lap, so I’m proud of that.”

Logano turned a lap in Saturday qualifying at 184.357 mph to win his second pole in three races, and the third of his career at Las Vegas. He beat Kyle Larson, winner at Las Vegas in October, who turned a lap at 184.225 in a Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.

Brad Moran, NASCAR Cup Series managing director, said the No. 22 Ford was one of five cars randomly selected for postqualifying inspection and the in-car camera immediately alerted officials that something was amiss.

“We spotted something that was honestly concerning,” Moran said ahead of Saturday activity at Las Vegas. “As you can see, the entire glove is webbed. The reason for that is you can obviously block more air, the drivers do put their hand up against the [window] opening, which we’ve never really had a rule against.

“This obviously goes one step further, and that glove becomes not only a competition problem, but it goes one step further because it becomes a safety violation.”

All equipment must be approved by The SFI Foundation Inc., which is a nonprofit organization that has administered the standards for the quality assurance of specialty performance and racing equipment since 1978. NASCAR was unsure the material used to create the webbing effect was even fire retardant.

Logano said at Las Vegas he would never have used the glove if he thought it was dangerous, which “I personally did not.”

“I would never have put myself in a situation where I feel unsafe,” Logano said. “I have kids. I have a wife. I have a family that I care way more about than race cars, so no, I didn’t feel concerned about what we did. I didn’t race with it. Qualifying on speedways is pretty simple.”

Logano was penalized this past Sunday morning when he forfeited the second-place starting position and was dropped to the back of the field at Atlanta. He also had to serve a drive-through penalty on pit road once he took the green flag as the competition penalty.

Logano this week was fined $10,000 for violating NASCAR’s safety code, under “Driver Responsibilities & Driver Protective Clothing/Equipment.”

Team owner Roger Penske earlier this week twice told The Associated Press, “I didn’t like that at all,” about Logano’s infraction and expressed his disappointment in the veteran Penske driver.

“It’s not good. Period. I told him,” Penske said. “He’s the leader of the team. Look, we are under so much scrutiny and the last thing we need to do is have any noise like that. It’s not good for us. It’s not good for him. We’ll take our punches.”

Reigning Cup champion Ryan Blaney, who in November gave Penske back-to-back NASCAR championships, said there was no internal conversation among the three Penske cars to try the glove. Blaney further said he was unaware that Logano was using an altered glove.

But Blaney acknowledged all teams are consistently trying to work within a gray area — but not push the boundaries to the point that their boss, Penske, is irked with the efforts and optics of the organization.

“That was something they found, and they just wanted to try, but that wasn’t something they tried to talk about,” Blaney said. “It’s always tricky, you want to be fast. But I feel like we’ve always been very good. We’ve always been very respectful — like we never get in trouble — because that’s Roger’s way, right?

“So, it’s a real balance because you are always trying to find speed, but sometimes you have to kind of get a little in that gray area to find it.”

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Ohtani blasts two HRs to halt 10-game drought

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Ohtani blasts two HRs to halt 10-game drought

LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani hit two homers in an 11-5 win over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night, emphatically ending the three-time MVP’s longest homer drought since joining the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Ohtani led off the bottom of the first with his 24th homer, hammering Landen Roupp‘s fourth pitch 419 feet deep into the right-field bleachers with an exit velocity of 110.3 mph.

The slugger had been in a 10-game homer drought since June 2, going 10-for-40 in that stretch with no RBIs, although he still had an eight-game hitting streak during his power outage.

Ohtani led off the sixth with his 25th homer, sending Tristan Beck‘s breaking ball outside the strike zone into the bleachers in right. He also moved one homer behind the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and Seattle’s Cal Raleigh for the overall major league lead.

Dodgers fans brought him home with a standing ovation as Ohtani produced his third multihomer game of the season and the 22nd of his career.

Ohtani reached base four times and scored three runs in his first four at-bats, drawing two walks to go with his two homers.

Ohtani hadn’t played in 10 straight games without hitting a homer since 2023 in the final 10 games of his six-year tenure with the Los Angeles Angels.

Ohtani had slowed down a bit over the past two weeks after he was named the NL Player of the Month for May with a formidable performance, racking up 15 homers and 28 RBIs.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Dobbins’ second win over Yanks caps ‘fun’ week

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Dobbins' second win over Yanks caps 'fun' week

BOSTON — Hunter Dobbins had quite the week.

First, he said last weekend that he would rather retire than pitch for the Yankees because his father was drafted by New York twice before being traded.

Then, he went out and beat the Yankees.

A few days after his comments about never wanting to pitch for New York, he had to defend his dad’s story about being drafted by the Yankees in response to a New York Post article that cited multiple official databases and the Yankees’ own records that couldn’t confirm Lance Dobbins ever played with the organization.

On Saturday night, Dobbins (4-1) followed up by going six shutout innings in Boston’s 4-3 victory over New York, his second win over the Yankees in less than a week.

“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “I’m more worried about just the win column, whether it’s against them or anybody. My job is to try and help this team win as many ballgames as we can, and pitch in meaningful playoff baseball games. That’s what I’m more focused on.”

But he realizes what it means to the fan base in this longtime rivalry, with the Red Sox fans heard chanting about the Yankees outside the park before he spoke in an interview room.

“Yeah, I love being able to perform and get those wins for the fans here,” he said. “They deserve it. It’s a great city, passionate fan base, so being able to get those wins — especially twice in one week — means a lot and looking forward to trying to build on that going forward.”

In his victory over New York last Sunday, Dobbins held the Yankees to three runs over five innings, two on a first-inning homer by Aaron Judge.

On Saturday night, Judge went 0-for-3 against him, striking out twice on curveballs.

“It was just kind of scouting,” Dobbins said of his game plan against New York’s slugger after Garrett Crochet struck him out three times in the series opener Friday.

“Crochet has an electric fastball. I can throw it hard, but the shape isn’t quite as elite,” he said. “So we knew we had better weapons to go at him with, so I felt like we did a good job of kind of keeping a balanced attack throughout the order.”

Dobbins struck out five and gave up only two singles Saturday.

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Rockies have worst 70-game mark since 1899

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Rockies have worst 70-game mark since 1899

ATLANTA — Kyle Farmer just shrugged when asked about being part of a Colorado Rockies team that has the fewest wins through 70 games since the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.

“We don’t care,” Farmer said after Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the Atlanta Braves left Colorado with a 13-57 record.

The Rockies have the fourth-fewest wins by any team through their first 70 decisions in a season in MLB history, and the fewest since the 1899 Spiders won 12 of their first 70 decisions. Colorado (.186 win percentage) is currently on pace to go 30-132 this season.

“I mean, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Farmer said. “It is what it is. We’ve just got to show up tomorrow and play. There’s nothing you can really say about it except that if it happens, it happens.”

The Rockies made more inglorious history by setting a franchise nine-inning record with 19 strikeouts. That’s a lot of futility for one team to absorb in one day.

The 19 strikeouts by Braves pitchers also set an Atlanta record for a nine-inning game. Spencer Strider recorded 13 strikeouts in six innings, followed by relievers Rafael Montero and Dylan Lee, who combined for six more whiffs.

The only bright spot for the Rockies was the encouraging start by rookie right-hander Chase Dollander, a native of Evans, Georgia, who allowed four runs, three earned, in six innings.

The Rockies have 10 fewer wins than the Chicago White Sox, who have the second-worst record in the majors at 23-48.

Dollander said “just having a neutral mindset” is the key to remaining positive through a season already filled with low points for the team.

“Don’t ride the roller coaster,” Dollander said. “You know, there’s going to be lots of ups and downs in this game. This game is really hard. So it’s just, you know, staying neutral and we just keep going.”

Dollander was the No. 9 overall pick in the 2023 summer draft. Among other top young players on the team are catcher Hunter Goodman, who might return to Atlanta for the All-Star Game on July 15, and outfielders Jordan Beck and Brenton Doyle.

“You know we’re going to have our time,” Dollander said. “I mean, it’s just one of those things that you kind of learn as you go. I’ve been very fortunate to be here for a little bit now, and I can help us going forward.”

The 34-year-old Farmer said one of his jobs is to help the younger players endure the losses.

“For sure, keeping guys accountable and teaching them the right way to do stuff,” said Farmer, the first baseman whose double off Strider was one of only four hits for the Rockies.

“Keeping their heads up and they’ve got to show up each day and play, no matter our record. It’s your job and you worked your whole life to get here. Enjoy it. This is a great opportunity for a young guy to show what they can do.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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