Sports

‘Thankful’ McDowell cruises to Brickyard 200 win

Published

2 years ago

August 21, 2023

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Associated Press

Aug 13, 2023, 05:43 PM ET

INDIANAPOLIS — Michael McDowell knelt down at Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s yard of bricks and delivered the sweetest kisses of his racing career Sunday.

The 38-year-old Arizona driver became a Brickyard champ — and a member of an elite club.

McDowell inherited the lead on Lap 53 and never trailed again as he drove the most dominant race of his career, beating Chase Elliott to the yard of bricks by 0.937 seconds for his second NASCAR crown jewel victory while securing a playoff spot. Pole-winner Daniel Suarez was third.

“We did it, we won Indy,” he shouted into the radio. “So thankful.”

McDowell’s only other win was the 2021 Daytona 500.

“That’s a big deal,” he said when asked about his second playoff appearance in three years. “When we won the Daytona 500, that was one of the coolest moments we ever had. We cherry-pick the races, my family comes to the ones we think we can win, and we thought we could win this one.”

As a result, McDowell’s wife and children also celebrated the Brickyard 200 title by kissing the bricks after his 453rd career Cup start. They weren’t at Daytona for his first win.

While his first win came by navigating traffic following a crash at Daytona, there was no doubt Sunday. McDowell won the first stage, finished behind only Denny Hamlin in Stage 2 and closed it out by leading a career-high 54 laps to give Front Row Motorsports its fourth Cup win.

McDowell’s victory put him on the short list of Cup drivers to reach Victory Lane at Daytona and Indy, a list that includes names such as the late Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Jarrett, who introduced the kissing tradition.

And on the annual crossover weekend with the IndyCar Series, McDowell also fittingly joined two of IndyCar’s greatest drivers on the list: Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt, the only winners of the Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500.

The significance struck McDowell almost immediately as he finished the 82-lap race on Indy’s 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course.

“We had the fastest car,” he said. “I don’t know if it was dominant, but it felt dominant.”

Elliott, the 2020 series champion, spent the final 20 laps trying to chase McDowell. He trimmed the deficit from nearly three seconds to less than one but couldn’t close enough to mount a charge.

So he settled for a runner-up finish that gave him some extra points but not the playoff-clinching win. He’ll have two more chances as the regular season winds to a close.

“I just lost too much ground in that mid-cycle,” Elliott said.

Suarez also spent most of the afternoon up front in a race that had only one yellow flag and 77 laps of green flag racing. He finished 5.75 seconds behind McDowell, the byproduct of a hose getting caught underneath the car’s left front tire during a pit stop.

Defending champion Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman, who also is fighting to make the playoffs, finished fourth and fifth.

Shane van Gisbergen finished 10th in his second career start, failing to become the first Cup driver to win his first two career starts. Van Gisbergen won in his NASCAR debut in the inaugural Chicago race last month but had a more challenging weekend running his first oval in Friday’s truck race and contending with a field of drivers who have years of data regarding Indy’s course.

“Oh, it’s aggressive,” the New Zealander said. “It was fine. I really enjoyed it. You make a move on someone and that gives you the room and then they expect it back, so really cool.”

McDowell felt the same way for a very different reason.

“After winning the Daytona 500, there aren’t many things that can top that, but this was a close second,” he said. “To have it all come together, it’s super special.”

The series makes its annual stop at Watkins Glen next Sunday, the second-to-last regular-season race.

Sports

Sources: Yankees get 3B in Rockies’ McMahon

Published

4 hours ago

July 25, 2025

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Sources: Yankees get 3B in Rockies' McMahon

Jorge CastilloJul 25, 2025, 02:05 PM ET
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NEW YORK — The Yankees are acquiring third baseman Ryan McMahon from the Rockies in exchange for minor league pitchers Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz, sources confirmed to ESPN on Friday.

The Yankees will assume the remainder of 30-year-old McMahon’s contract, which includes approximately $4.5 million for the remainder of 2025 and $32 million over the next two seasons.

An All-Star last season, McMahon was batting .217 with 16 home runs and a .717 OPS in 100 games for Colorado in 2025. He hit home runs in the first two games after the All-Star break and another on Tuesday and is on pace to keep his four-year 20-homer streak alive.

While the production has resulted in a 92 OPS+, which suggests McMahon has been 8% worse than the average major league hitter this season, he still represents a significant offensive upgrade at third base for New York.

The Yankees have had Oswald Peraza, one of the worst hitters in the majors, manning third base nearly every day since the club decided to release DJ LeMahieu, another former Rockies player, earlier this month and move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base. Peraza, while a strong defender, is slashing .147/.208/.237 in 69 games this season. His 24 wRC+ ranks last among the 310 hitters with at least 160 plate appearances this season.

Defensively, McMahon is a Gold Glove-caliber third baseman whose four Outs Above Average is third in the majors this season. He joins a Yankees club that has been marred by sloppy defense, most recently on Wednesday when it committed four errors in a defensive meltdown against the first-place Toronto Blue Jays.

Herring, 22, has recorded a 1.71 ERA in 89⅓ innings across 16 starts between Low- and High-A this season. He was a sixth-round pick out of LSU in the 2024 draft.

Grosz, an 11th-round pick in 2023, had a 4.14 ERA in 87 innings over 16 games (15 starts) for High-A Hudson Valley this season.

With third base addressed, the Yankees will continue to seek to acquire pitchers to bolster both their rotation and bullpen.

MLB.com first reported on the Yankees trading for McMahon.

Sports

Mets trade for reliever in Orioles left-hander Soto

Published

4 hours ago

July 25, 2025

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Mets trade for reliever in Orioles left-hander Soto

Jorge CastilloJul 25, 2025, 01:07 PM ET
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The Mets acquired left-handed reliever Gregory Soto from the Orioles on Friday in exchange for two minor leaguers in what could be the first of multiple moves by New York to bolster its bullpen before the trade deadline Thursday.

The trade, which sent Class A right-hander Wellington Aracena and Double-A right-hander Cameron Foster to Baltimore, gives the Mets a hard-throwing left-hander to complement the club’s only lefty on the roster, Brooks Raley, who returned from Tommy John surgery last week.

Soto, who is 30 and was an All-Star with the Detroit Tigers in 2021 and 2022, has posted a 3.96 ERA with a 27.5% strikeout rate in 45 appearances this season. The Mets will be his fourth team since the 2022 season.

On Monday, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns plainly signaled that upgrading the bullpen for the stretch run is his top priority.

The need is clear. Injuries and overuse have depleted a relief corps that led the majors in bullpen ERA through May 31. Since June 1, the group has posted 4.52 ERA, good for 23rd in the majors.

Aracena, 20, is 1-1 with a 2.38 ERA in 17 games for St. Lucie. The Orioles said he is one of two pitchers in the minors this season to have thrown at least 60 innings without surrendering a home run.

Foster, 26, is 5-2 with two saves and a 2.97 ERA while pitching at the Double-A and Triple-A levels.

Sports

Fenway concession workers strike for Sox series

Published

4 hours ago

July 25, 2025

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Fenway concession workers strike for Sox series

Associated Press

Jul 25, 2025, 04:41 PM ET

BOSTON — Hundreds of Aramark workers at Fenway Park are on strike and planning to stay out for all of a homestand between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers starting Friday night.

Concession workers had set a deadline of noon Friday for Aramark and Fenway Park to reach an agreement with the Local 26 chapter of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island hotel, casino, airport and food services workers union.

The union went on strike at noon asking for “living wages, guardrails on technology and R-E-S-P-E-C-T!”

With the Red Sox and Dodgers scheduled to start at 7:10 p.m. EDT, union officials had a request for fans attending this homestand with food and beer workers on strike.

“We’re asking you to NOT buy concessions inside the ballpark,” Local 26 wrote on social media. “Tailgate before the games!”

Union workers walked the picket line wearing green T-shirts declaring “FENWAY WORKERS ON STRIKE.” They carried signs in the shape of a baseball proclaiming Local 26.

The Red Sox go out of town Monday with a game that night at Minnesota.