BRISTOL, Tenn. — Noah Gragson held off Brandon Jones over the closing laps Friday night at Bristol Motor Speedway to win his third consecutive Xfinity Series race.
Gragson won his series-high sixth race of the season driving a Chevrolet for JR Motorsports. He was aided when teammate Justin Allgaier was flagged for speeding during the final pit stops under caution; Gragson did not pit and restarted the race in the lead.
Gragson and his JRM crew climbed the Bristol fence in celebration, then a breathless Gragson sat on the wall to collect himself.
“Man, three in a row. I appreciate Brandon Jones racing us clean,” Gragson said, noting he won at Bristol in 2020 during the pandemic in front of a limited crowd.
“What a great opportunity to race here in front of fans. I had a blast.”
The Xfinity Series playoffs begin next week at Texas Motor Speedway and Gragson is the top seed.
Jones, who is replacing Gragson next year in the No. 9 when Gragson moves to a Cup ride, had several good looks at passing Gragson for the win. Jones never tried to move him and settled for second in his Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Austin Hill was third in a Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing and was followed by Sam Mayer and then Riley Herbst in fifth as the highest-finishing Ford driver.
AJ Allmendinger finished sixth to clinch his second consecutive regular-season championship.
Ryan Sieg claimed the last spot in the Xfinity Series playoff field when Landon Cassill had mechanical issues that sent Cassill behind the wall for more than 100 laps.
Cassill got back on track but finished 35th. Sieg was 10th to edge Cassill for the final playoff berth by five points.
Gragson earlier in the race took out a pair of contenders when he hit the back of Ty Gibbs as Gibbs was racing side-by-side with leader Sheldon Creed. The contact turned Gibbs hard into Creed and both cars crashed.
It eliminated Creed from the playoff field and cost Gibbs the regular-season championship.
“It’s been my year all year, I’m right in the middle of everyone’s mess,” Creed said. “I don’t know where Noah was going to go, you know?”
Gibbs was a long shot for the regular-season title before the race, anyway, and trailed Allmendinger by 38 points. The race-ending crash for Gibbs handed Allmendinger his second consecutive regular-season Xfinity crown before the end of the second stage.
George Springer had a career-high seven RBIs, including his ninth grand slam, and the Toronto Blue Jays celebrated Canada Day by beating the Yankees 12-5 on Tuesday and closing within one game of American League East-leading New York.
The seven RBIs are tied for the second most by any Blue Jays player in a home game, behind Edwin Encarnación (nine RBIs in 2015), according to ESPN Research.
Andrés Giménez had a go-ahead, three-run homer for the Blue Jays, who overcame a 2-0 deficit against Max Fried. After the Yankees tied the score 4-4 in the seventh, Toronto broke open the game in the bottom half against a reeling Yankees bullpen.
Springer went 3-for-4, starting the comeback with a solo homer in the fourth against Fried and boosting the lead to 9-5 with the slam off Luke Weaver after Ernie Clement‘s go-ahead single off shortstop Anthony Volpe‘s glove. Springer has 13 homers this season.
Toronto won the first two games of the four-game series and closed within one game of the Yankees for the first time since before play on April 20.
New York went 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position, dropping to 3-for-24 in the series, while the Blue Jays were 5-for-7. After going 13-14 in June, the Yankees fell to 10-14 against AL East rivals.
DENVER — Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez has experienced a setback in his recovery from a broken right hand and will see a specialist.
Astros general manager Dana Brown said Alvarez felt pain when he arrived Tuesday at the team’s spring training complex in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he had a workout a day earlier. Alvarez also took batting practice Saturday at Daikin Park.
He will be shut down until he’s evaluated by the specialist.
“It’s a tough time going through this with Yordan, but I know that he’s still feeling pain and the soreness in his hand,” Brown said before Tuesday night’s series opener at Colorado, which the Astros won 6-5. “We’re not going to try to push it or force him through anything. We’re just going to allow him to heal and get a little bit more answers as to what steps we take next.”
Alvarez has been sidelined for nearly two months. The injury was initially diagnosed as a muscle strain, but when Alvarez felt pain again while hitting in late May, imaging revealed a small fracture.
The 28-year-old outfielder, who has hit 31 homers or more in each of the past four seasons, had been eyeing a return as soon as this weekend at the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now it’s uncertain when he’ll play.
“We felt like he was close because he had felt so good of late,” Brown said, “but this is certainly news that we didn’t want.”
Also Tuesday, the Astros officially placed shortstop Jeremy Peña on the 10-day injured list with a fractured rib and recalled infielder Shay Whitcomb from Triple-A Sugar Land.
Shohei Ohtani reached 30 homers for the fifth straight season, hitting a fourth-inning drive after fouling a pitch off the plate umpire, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago White Sox 6-1 on Tuesday night.
Ohtani fouled the ball off Alan Porter’s right knee in the fourth. Ohtani checked on the umpire and stood by watching until Parker got up under his own power. The three-time MVP then hit a 408-foot shot to center, snapping an 0-for-6 skid and extending the lead to 6-1. He tied Cody Bellinger in 2019 for most home runs before the All-Star break in Dodgers history; Bellinger won National League MVP that year.
Ohtani joined Seattle‘s Cal Raleigh (33) and Aaron Judge of the Yankees (30) as players with at least 30 homers by the All-Star break; it marks the fifth season that three players have reached the 30-homer threshold before the break (2019, 1998, 1994, 1969).
As for Ohtani, this is his third season hitting at least 30 home runs before the break, tying Ken Griffey Jr. for third most in MLB history (Judge and Mark McGwire each did so for four seasons).
During the seventh-inning stretch, Ohtani walked over and checked on Porter again before leading off.
Los Angeles scored its most runs this season in support of Yoshinobu Yamamoto (8-6), staking the Japanese right-hander to a 4-0 lead in the first inning.
The Dodgers won for the 13th time in 16 games and opened a season-high, eight-game NL West lead. They are 16-5 (.762 win percentage) since June 8, the best record in MLB during that span.
Every run Tuesday night was scored with two outs.
Yamamoto allowed one run and three hits in seven innings, struck out eight and walked one.