CONCORD, N.C. — Jumping into the crowd to celebrate a big race victory appears to have become a Team Penske thing.
Ryan Blaney held off William Byron to win the rescheduled Coca-Cola 600 on Monday at Charlotte Speedway, giving team owner Roger Penske a sweep of the Memorial Day weekend’s top races in the United States.
“I only did it because Josef did it,” Blaney said. “I was pretty fired up. I don’t get that excited very often, but I was super pumped. I loved how Josef did it Sunday. … I said, ‘I am going to go in the stands like Josef did and have some human contact.'”
Blaney compared it to jumping into a mosh pit at a metal concert.
A few moments later, he tried to hold back tears with the weight of 59-race winless streak lifted from his shoulders.
“You start to get to feel like you can’t win anymore,” Blaney said. “We hadn’t won in awhile and that can get hard. I want to thank the 12 (team) for believing in me.”
Blaney took the lead from Byron on a restart and led the final 26 laps to win his first Cup Series race since the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona in August of 2021.
“He’s under a lot of pressure to perform,” Truex said. “They’ve won a lot of races since his last race. I’m sure he questioned himself through some point during that streak that he was on. He’s had many opportunities to win and they’ve slipped away. Those are the hardest to think about so he’s probably thinking, ‘we finally did it.'”
It is the first time Team Penske has swept the Indianapolis-Charlotte doubleheader.
“The pressure was on us to try to sweep the weekend,” said Blaney, who said he texted Newgarden after the Indy 500 win. “So that was the goal. Fortunately we executed well enough to get it done.”
Blaney’s win came just days before Penske hosts a weekend of racing on the downtown streets of Detroit. The return of racing in downtown Detroit is Penske’s gift to the city he calls home. Then, the 86-year-old heads to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of the very few events he’s yet to win.
The 5½-hour race included five wrecks in the final 50 laps, including one with 26 to go when last week’s All-Star race winner Kyle Larson spun and took out defending Cup champion Joey Logano, Kyle Busch and Christopher Bell.
Blaney had passed Byron on the previous restart, and then got the jump on him again on the final restart and ran away with the checkered flag.
It was a rain-soaked weekend at Charlotte, which washed out practice and qualifying and postponed the race to Monday. That meant drivers began the race without ever having turned a lap in the NextGen cars at the 1.5-mile oval for the first time in Coca-Cola 600 history.
More rain caused the race to be red-flagged for nearly an hour after 158 laps, making the longest Cup race of the year even longer.
During the rain delay television cameras caught Aric Almirola shoving Wallace after the two exchanged words. Wallace refused to say what sparked the altercation, and said he wasn’t surprised at what unfolded.
“When you walk around with two faces, that’s what you get,” Wallace said.
It was a rough night for Jimmie Johnson and his new Legacy Motor Club team.
After saying he has never been more ill-prepared for a race due to his inexperience in the NextGen car, Johnson spun out on lap 78 in a single-car crash. He took his No. 84 Chevy behind the wall a few laps later and was joined by there by Legacy teammates Erik Jones and Noah Gragson, who suffered radiator damage.
After Johnson returned, he crashed into Gragson and spun out a second time and went behind the wall again. He finished last.
“I think I learned a lesson with this aero package that I didn’t know about,” Johnson said. “Much different than the car I have driven in the past.”
Kevin Harvick finished 11th in his final Coca-Cola 600.
Harvick, who is retiring after the season, won the race in 2011 and 2013. He started Monday’s race on the front row, but quickly fell back to the mid-20s and was never a major factor in the race.
After issuing a walk to Byron Buxton, Matt Wallner lofted a home run to the flower bed just past the right-field wall, ending Misiorowski’s run of hitless innings to start his big league career at 11, the first starter to do that since 1900.
“I think this is exactly how I ever dreamed of it coming along,” the 23-year-old rookie said. “It’s exciting.”
He threw five no-hit innings against St. Louis on June 12, but left in the sixth with cramping in his right calf and quadriceps.
“I felt calmer and ready to go compared to the first one,” Misiorowski said. “Nerves were going pretty heavy on the first one, so it’s good to finally feel the feet under you.”
The 6-foot-7 right-hander struck out six with a fastball topping out at 102.1 mph and a slider and changeup in the mid-90s.
“It’s important to prove to yourself as a young player that you belong in the big leagues and taste success and realize that you do belong here,” said Christian Yelich, who had a career-high eight RBIs. “He should believe he’s a really good major league pitcher because he is. All the nights probably aren’t going to go as smooth as the first two, but you see the ability.
“He’s got a chance to something special every night he goes out there.”
Misiorowski is the only big leaguer since 1900 to have more wins (2) than hits allowed (1) in his first two career starts, according to OptaSTATS.
“He was attacking, but mixing, too,” manager Pat Murphy said. “It wasn’t just heaters.”
After seeing four straight pitches of at least 100.8 mph from Misiorowski, Willi Castro twisted like a corkscrew and dropped to the ground as he struck out on a 95.5 mph slider in the first inning.
“You don’t see a guy throwing a slider 95, 96,” Castro said. “It’s really hard to pick up.”
Misiorowski threw 29 pitches of 100 mph or higher and had 12 of 101 mph or more. Since tracking started in 2008, the only starting pitchers to throw more in a game at 101 mph and above are Hunter Greene (33 on Sept. 17, 2022; 21 on March 30, 2023; 18 on July 26, 2022; and 13 on April 16, 2022) and Jordan Hicks (on July 12, 2022), according to Major League Baseball.
After the homer by Wallner, Misiorowski was pulled for reliever Nick Mears and left to a standing ovation. He threw 86 pitches, 60 for strikes, and departed with Milwaukee leading 8-2.
The Brewers scored five runs in the top of the seventh, a long time for starter to sit in the dugout, but Misiorowski was adamant about going back to the mound.
“He said, ‘Yes I’m getting toward the end, but I want to challenge myself,'” Murphy said. “It was a good time to have him do that.”
LOS ANGELES — San Diego Padres closer Robert Suarez was suspended for three games and fined an undisclosed amount Friday for intentionally hitting Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers with a pitch during the NL West rivals’ contentious meeting Thursday night.
Suarez will appeal the suspension, keeping him eligible to play for San Diego on Friday night against Kansas City. He did not pitch in the Padres’ 6-5 loss.
Padres manager Mike Shildt and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts also received one-game suspensions and undisclosed fines for their roles in the brouhaha that occurred in both halves of the ninth inning during the Padres’ 5-3 victory at Dodger Stadium.
“I support it,” Roberts said about the league’s disciplinary decision. “I think that obviously I never want to make the game about the managers. It shouldn’t be. It should be about the players and winning, so last night, both managers are protecting their teams, and it just unfortunately got to the point that we became the focus, and that’s not the way it should be.”
Both managers were ejected in the top of the ninth after they ran onto the field and bumped into each other during a vociferous argument that almost got even more physical before their players and assistant coaches intervened.
Shildt believed Dodgers reliever Jack Little intentionally hit Fernando Tatís Jr. in the right hand with a pitch, igniting the latest bench-clearing incident between local rivals with several years of bad-tempered history.
“Circumstances were really challenging this past series, and at the end of the day I don’t regret standing up for a guy that I love in Tati, and a team that I love and a city that I love,” Shildt said. “In that regard, I have no regrets how it got to that point. Again, we can all have our comments and thoughts and theories. But as far as my actions, it’s not something you want to do every night or needs to be done, hopefully ever again. But appropriate actions for the circumstances were taken, and I don’t regret it at all.”
Shildt and Roberts served their suspensions Friday. Bench coach Danny Lehmann managed the Dodgers in their 6-5 win over the Washington Nationals, and Padres bench coach Brian Esposito was in San Diego’s dugout vs. the Royals.
In the bottom of the ninth, Ohtani was hit on the back of his right shoulder by Suarez’s pitch, putting the tying run on base during the Dodgers’ three-run rally. Ohtani’s teammates appeared to be preparing to storm the field for the second time before Ohtani waved them back. The three-time MVP then walked to the Padres’ dugout for some light banter, defusing the tension.
Suarez on Friday insisted he hadn’t retaliated for Tatís.
“I was never trying to get anyone into trouble or hit anybody,” Suarez said through an interpreter. “Unfortunately it happened. I got ejected and I couldn’t finish out the game, but we won as a team, and we were able to salvage that game. … [The Dodgers are] entitled to their opinion. They can say whatever they want. That was not the case. I was out there to try to save the game.”
Ohtani threw a bullpen session as scheduled Friday despite getting hit by Suarez on his pitching shoulder. Ohtani’s second mound start for the Dodgers is still expected to happen Sunday, Roberts said.
Tatís was in the Padres’ lineup as usual Friday. Manny Machado said afterward that the Dodgers should “pray” Tatís had escaped serious injury, encouraging them to “put out a candle.”
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Jesse joined ESPN Chicago in September 2009 and covers MLB for ESPN.com.
SAN FRANCISCO — As he prepared to face his former team just five days after being traded, San Francisco Giants slugger Rafael Devers wants to leave things in the past as it pertains to the Boston Red Sox.
“I put up some good numbers in Boston and I feel like I earned some respect,” Devers said through an interpreter. “If they would have asked me at the beginning of spring training, yes, I would have played [first].”
Of course, back then the Red Sox didn’t have an opening at first base as Triston Casas didn’t get hurt until about a month into the season. But the overall damage had been done.
The lack of communication between the sides seemingly led to the stunning trade, and now just three games into his career with San Francisco, Devers has to face his old teammates in a weekend series at Oracle Park.
“Whatever happened, happened,” Devers said. “But they’re still my friends.”
Devers actually got to see his friends after they arrived in town Thursday, but as of early Friday afternoon, he had not seen or talked to manager Alex Cora. He’s confident he will.
Devers was pressed about his former manager.
“I don’t want to talk about the past,” Devers said. “I don’t have anything good or bad to say about Alex. I just want to leave everything in the past.”
Cora addressed the subject during his pregame media availability, saying, “There’s a lot of stuff that Rafy did for us that we’re going to miss. We’re very proud of him.”
Asked if the two need to clear the air about anything, Cora replied, “Clear the air about what? It’s a trade. It’s baseball. It’s a business. That’s how it works.
“It’s not the first guy that’s gotten traded. It’s not the last guy. People have their opinions about the whole thing. Communication, first base, DH, third base, the manager, the GM, the owner, whatever. It’s a baseball trade. From my end, I turn the page.”
Cora was then asked if he’s “surprised” Devers is working at first base, to which the manager offered a succinct, “No.”
Devers acknowledged it’s been a “long week” but he’s feeling more relaxed and even happy now. Entering Friday, he was 3-for-11 with two walks and four strikeouts for his new team, which desperately needs his presence in its lineup.
Devers, batting third and serving as the Giants’ designated hitter, got a standing ovation before grounding out in his first at-bat in the first inning Friday and hit a drive to the wall in left-center that Ceddanne Rafaela caught against the wall.
He would finish the game 0-for-5 as San Francisco lost 7-5 and dropped to 1-3 since the trade. It was the second time this season Devers went 0-for-5 or worse (0-for-6 at at Detroit on May 13), and the first time he did so in a home game since Sept. 26, 2023 (Rays at Red Sox).
Eventually, he’ll see time at first base — but only when he’s ready.
“It’s not a position I’m going to learn how to play overnight,” Devers said.
“It’s not the first guy that’s gotten traded. It’s not the last guy. People have their opinions about the whole thing. Communication, first base, DH, third base, the manager, the GM, the owner, whatever. It’s a baseball trade. From my end, I turn the page.”
Red Sox manager Alex Cora
He was asked several times when he might get a start there.
“Whenever I feel like I’m comfortable,” he answered.
The conversation eventually came back around to his relationship with the Red Sox, but Devers insisted on putting it behind him.
“I really don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “I want to concentrate what’s in the future for me.”
ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.