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HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Bubba Wallace is missing Sunday’s NASCAR race, and that is evidently not his only sanction after losing his cool in Las Vegas last weekend.

Denny Hamlin — who, along with Michael Jordan, co-owns the 23XI Racing team Wallace drives for — said Saturday that the team has dealt with matters in a way that goes “above and beyond” the penalties handed down by NASCAR.

Hamlin didn’t say what that means, choosing to keep those matters in-house.

“He understands where I stand, where the team stands, the values that we want to present on the racetrack, and he just didn’t represent it that well last week,” Hamlin said. “But you know, in the grand scheme of things, we’re very happy with his progress. And he knows he’s still got some stuff to work on when he gets out of the race car.”

Last week, Wallace intentionally wrecked reigning Cup champion Kyle Larson at Las Vegas in a dangerous act of retaliation. Playoff contender Christopher Bell got caught up in that wreck, smashing his car and denting his chances of becoming NASCAR champion. Bell remains in the playoffs but needs to rally.

Wallace was suspended for this week at Homestead-Miami, but he is not the only driver in the spotlight right now for causing trouble.

Two weeks ago, NASCAR issued $200,000 in fines after finding that Stewart-Haas Racing driver Cole Custer slowed on the backstretch of the final lap in Charlotte and helped teammate Chase Briscoe move up enough to reach the next round of the playoffs. Custer and his crew chief, Mike Shiplett, were both fined $100,000 after NASCAR determined Custer’s slowdown was deliberate.

“NASCAR’s like your parents a lot of times,” playoff leader and title contender Joey Logano said. “There’s a line of, you know, you’ve got to let the boys figure it out sometimes, and they’ll figure it out together and move on or Mom and Dad has to step in a little bit and control the situation because it’s gotten out of hand. So I believe NASCAR kind of decided it’s getting out of hand.”

Drivers tended to agree with NASCAR on these calls.

“In my opinion, those moves were extremely, extremely dumb — both of them,” Daniel Suarez said. “And with both of them, I was going to be extremely surprised if they were not penalties. … You have to be smarter. I don’t know what those guys were thinking.”

That question — “What was he thinking?” — has been a storyline for much of this NASCAR season, with no shortage of temper-flaring incidents.

Ross Chastain, who has had a big first season for Trackhouse Racing, has featured prominently in a few of those. He has clashed with Hamlin, had a starring role in a wreck that put a good dent in Kevin Harvick‘s title chances and had his name converted to a verb by Kyle Busch. Getting wrecked by Chastain is now, in NASCAR parlance, getting “Chastained.”

“Look, some of the things I did throughout the summer were just not … looking back, I would do them different,” Chastain said. “Some of it would just be my stance after the race. I would prefer it be different. But a lot of on-track stuff, I could definitely clean up.”

Wallace isn’t at Homestead this weekend, even to watch. He will be in the team garage, and Logano said he doesn’t think Wallace owes his fellow drivers an explanation.

“It’s kind of all in front of us. We all see,” Logano said. “I’m not looking for anything. He didn’t do it to me. If he did it to me, yeah, we’d have big problems.”

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Sale, Crochet named comeback players of year

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Sale, Crochet named comeback players of year

LAS VEGAS — Left-handers Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves and Garrett Crochet of the Chicago White Sox won Major League Baseball’s Comeback Player of the Year awards on Thursday.

Cleveland right-hander Emmanuel Clase won his second AL Reliever of the Year award and St. Louis righty Ryan Helsley won the NL honor.

Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani joined David Ortiz as the only players to win four straight Outstanding Designated Hitter awards. Ohtani and the New York YankeesAaron Judge won Hank Aaron Awards as the outstanding offensive performers in their leagues.

Major League Baseball made the announcements at its All-MLB Awards Show.

Sale, 35, was 18-3 with a 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts in 177⅔ innings for the NL’s first pitching triple crown since the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw in 2011. He earned his eighth All-Star selection and first since 2018.

Sale helped Boston to the 2018 World Series title but made just 56 starts from 2020-23, going 17-18 with a 4.86 ERA, 400 strikeouts and 79 walks over 298⅓ innings. He was acquired by Boston from the White Sox in December 2016 and made nine trips to the injured list with the Red Sox, mostly with shoulder and elbow ailments. He had Tommy John surgery on March 30, 2020, and returned to a big league mound on Aug. 14, 2021.

Sale fractured a rib while pitching in batting practice in February 2022 during the management lockout. On July 17, in his second start back, he broke his left pinkie finger when he was hit by a line drive off the bat of the Yankees’ Aaron Hicks. Sale broke his right wrist while riding a bicycle en route to lunch on Aug. 6, ending his season.

Crochet, 25, was 6-12 with a 3.58 ERA over 32 starts for a White Sox team that set a post-1900 record of 121 losses, becoming a first-time All-Star. He struck out 209 and walked 33 in 146 innings.

He had Tommy John surgery on April 5, 2022, and returned to the major leagues on May 18, 2023. Crochet had a 3.55 ERA in 13 relief appearances in 2023, and then joined the rotation this year.

Sale and Crochet were chosen in voting by MLB.com beat writers.

Clase and Helsley were unanimous picks by a panel that included Hall of Famers Trevor Hoffman, Mariano Rivera, Dennis Eckersley and Rollie Fingers, along with John Franco and Billy Wagner. The AL award is named after Rivera and the NL honor after Hoffman.

A three-time All-Star, Clase was 4-2 with a 0.61 ERA, 66 strikeouts and 10 walks in 74⅓ innings, holding batters to a .154 average. The 26-year-old converted 47 of 50 save chances, including his last 47.

Voting was based on the regular season. Clase was 0-2 with a 9.00 ERA in the playoffs, allowing three home runs, one more than his regular-season total.

Helsley, a two-time All-Star, was 7-4 with a 2.04 ERA and 49 saves in 53 chances. He struck out 79 and walked 23 in 66⅓ innings.

Ohtani became the first player with 50 or more homers and 50 or more stolen bases in a season. A two-way star limited to hitting following elbow surgery, Ohtani batted .310 and led the NL with 54 homers and 130 RBIs while stealing 59 bases.

Ortiz won the DH award five years in a row from 2003-07.

The DH award, named after Edgar Martinez, is picked in voting by team beat writers, broadcasters and public relations departments. MLB.com writers determined the finalists for the Aaron awards, and a fan vote was combined with picks from a panel of Hall of Famers and former winners to determine the selections.

Judge led the major leagues with 58 homers and 144 RBIs while hitting .322.

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Georgia leading rusher Etienne ruled out vs. Vols

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Georgia leading rusher Etienne ruled out vs. Vols

No. 12 Georgia will be without leading rusher Trevor Etienne for Saturday’s showdown against No. 7 Tennessee.

Etienne was downgraded from questionable to out on Thursday night’s SEC availability report.

Etienne left Georgia’s win over Florida with an upper-body injury on Nov. 2 and did not return. He played limited snaps in last week’s 28-10 loss at Ole Miss, carrying the ball six times for 24 yards.

Etienne leads the Bulldogs with 477 rushing yards and seven touchdowns this season.

The loss is another blow to Georgia’s banged-up backfield. Cash Jones is also listed as questionable while Branson Robinson remains out after missing the past three games with a knee injury.

That leaves true freshman Nate Frazier as the only healthy Bulldogs running back who has played meaningful snaps this year. Frazier is second on the team with 333 rushing yards and three touchdowns.

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QB Castellanos exits after losing BC starting job

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QB Castellanos exits after losing BC starting job

Boston College quarterback Thomas Castellanos, who lost his starting job earlier this week, will not be returning to the team, he announced Thursday night.

Castellanos, who started 12 games last season and retained the top job under new coach Bill O’Brien, wrote on X that “unfortunately, all good things come to an end, even though it’s sooner than I would like.” He did not mention the transfer portal in his departing message and has not officially entered it. The junior from Waycross, Georgia, started his career at UCF and appeared in five games in 2022.

O’Brien said Tuesday that Grayson James, who replaced Castellanos in last week’s win against Syracuse, will start Saturday when Boston College visits No. 14 SMU. Castellanos “wasn’t real thrilled” with the decision, O’Brien said, adding that the quarterback decided to step away from the team for several days.

Castellanos had 2,248 passing yards and 1,113 rushing yards last season under coach Jeff Hafley, passing for 15 touchdowns and adding 13 on the ground. He had 18 touchdown passes and only five interceptions this season, but his accuracy dipped in recent weeks, and he completed only 2 of 7 passes against Syracuse before being replaced.

In his statement, Castellanos thanked both coaching staffs he played for at Boston College and wrote that he had “some of the best experiences of my life in the Eagles Nest and I will truly cherish these memories forever.”

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