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3 months ago

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  • Kelly Crandall

Feb 7, 2025, 08:29 AM ET

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. reflects quite a bit on his NASCAR career.

Now 37, Stenhouse thinks about his dominance in the Xfinity Series driving for Jack Roush, about how the eight race wins he earned in two seasons (2011-2012) perhaps could have been more. He thinks about the drivers he went toe-to-toe with weekly, rivals who enjoyed lengthy Cup Series careers, claiming two consecutive Xfinity championships.

His short yet brilliant Xfinity Series career is quite a juxtaposition compared to his Cup Series tenure. Although Stenhouse won Rookie of the Year honors in 2013, he never felt his team could achieve the speed it was capable of. During the seven seasons he spent at Roush, he won only two races in the Cup Series.

Those results fell far short of expectations. He was projected to be a cornerstone in Roush’s long-term future.

In 2020, Stenhouse moved to Hyak Motorsports. It is a small, single-car operation, vastly different to the multi-car, once-championship-winning juggernaut he left behind at Roush.

“I think the expectations are probably less [now] than when I came into the Cup Series,” Stenhouse told ESPN. “There’s a little bit dynamic there of what we look like and look for in success.”

The most significant success for Stenhouse and Hyak came two years ago. First he pulled off an unexpected victory in the 2023 Daytona 500 to earn a spot in the postseason, then he averaged top-15 finishes late in the season. The latter makes Stenhouse almost prouder than the Daytona win.

“I felt week in and week out, we had speed and were executing,” he said. “With what we’ve been able to do with a small team, I think we can get back there. I think that turned a lot of heads of what we were able to do, and they know the resources a single-car team like us has compared to some of the bigger four-car teams, and I think our team does a great job with that. I’m looking forward to getting back there.”

Daytona sticks with a team far longer than the seven days between typical race wins. Not every driver and team have a Daytona 500 win. Some of the sport’s biggest names went their entire career without winning the biggest race. Stenhouse and Hyak will always be remembered as Daytona 500 winners, even by fans who only know NASCAR because of its Super Bowl event.

“We cherish that,” Stenhouse said. “We’re very proud to have accomplished that.”

Last year, Stenhouse and Hyak Motorsports went to victory lane in the fall race at Talladega Superspeedway. It was the team’s third ever Cup Series win, naturally making Stenhouse the first driver in their history to win races in back-to-back seasons.

“Being so far removed from those [Xfinity Series] wins and championships, it’s nice to put two seasons together of wins,” Stenhouse said. “We’re looking to carry that on to three years and try to rebuild the Cup career and maybe what people have thought about my career.”

Stenhouse seems at peace with how it’s unfolded — aside from his natural desire to add more to his resume.

Being at Hyak works for Stenhouse for many reasons, chief among them is the respect and belief between team and driver, and Stenhouse has familiar faces within the organization. Mike Kelley, Stenhouse’s crew chief, was also his crew chief at Roush. Ernie Cope, one of the team’s co-owners, worked with Stenhouse and Kelley’s rivals in years past, making both sides well aware of the other’s talent.

And with time and experience has come leadership. Stenhouse is a 12-year veteran of the Cup Series and has already spent five years with Hyak.

“I’ve settled in because I’ve got good people behind me and around me that really believe in my ability behind the wheel and my feedback,” Stenhouse said. “I think I’ve settled in because it’s a tight-knit family and it’s small, it’s fun to upset and win some of these races and go run top 10, things that people probably don’t have on their bingo [card] of us doing, and it’s nice for us to go out there and do that.

“I tell our team this all the time: I’m not there to prove people wrong. I want to prove the people we have in our shop right because we all believe that we can do it.”

A new season starts with a revamped team. Hyak Motorsports was rebranded in the winter from JTG Daugherty Racing, and internally there were promotions and shuffling. Stenhouse said there were additions on the engineering side that he hopes will help with different philosophies and ways of doing things. The goal is to be more on the front side of assessing ideas that do and don’t work before going to the racetrack on the wrong path.

As that happens, and Stenhouse continues to rebuild his career, maybe one day he’ll be reflecting on more recent accomplishments than those of days gone by.

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Twins call on RHP Matthews to keep streak going

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2 hours ago

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May 18, 2025

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Twins call on RHP Matthews to keep streak going

  • ESPN News Services

May 18, 2025, 12:11 PM ET

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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2 hours ago

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May 18, 2025

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Cora to skip game to attend daughter's graduation

  • Associated Press

May 18, 2025, 12:36 PM ET

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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2 hours ago

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May 18, 2025

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Brewers send struggling starter Myers to minors

  • Associated Press

May 18, 2025, 01:40 PM ET

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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