Keep an eye on Joey Logano this week. Photo via: Wiki Commons.
It's here, the semi-final race before the championship, the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville. The stakes have never been higher as four drivers will race for a championship at the conclusion. With this track being so narrow, there is a 100 percent chance that we will see a lot of bent fenders at the end of the race. There will be plenty of drama when the smoke clears. The playoff field of eight is as tight as ever, as Ryan Blaney is a single point behind Kyle Busch for the final spot at Phoenix. The rest of the field isn't too far behind either as Martin Truex Jr is three points back and Brad Keselowski is six points out. It is shaping up to be one of the most dramatic races of the season. You won't want to miss it.
The playoff woes continued for some last week at Kansas. Drivers like Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch, and Martin Truex Jr all had tire troubles that gave them bad results. This is a big reason as to why the points are as close as they are going into this race. This has been the general theme all throughout each round. The only driver who hasn't seemed to have any issues has been Kyle Larson as he went on to his ninth victory of the season.
This has been a special season for Kyle Larson. A lot was made about if he should be able to return after all the self-imposed turmoil of 2020, but he has really made the most of his second chance. This victory last week was his third win in a row and the second time he's reached a streak of three consecutive victories. The only other driver to do it, Dale Earnhardt, in 1987 when he won his third NASCAR championship. This season will go down in history as one of the most dominant seasons the sport has ever seen, and I have to give Kyle a lot of credit. Not just because of his performance on the track, but because of how much he has done to try and make things right after his mistake last season. He has proved that it's never about how you fall, but how you make it better and get back up. I commend him on his efforts.
One driver to look out for this week is the driver with the most to gain and the least to lose, and that's Joey Logano. He currently sits in eighth position 26 points below the cutline. While it isn't technically a must-win situation for Logano, it's pretty close. With his aggressive driving style, more than likely if he is in a position to take someone out for the win this week, he will. We watched him do it back in 2018 after knocking Martin Truex Jr out of the lead in the final corner. In a sense, I can't really blame Logano for the way he drives. He doesn't take any prisoners out there, and I expect it to be much of the same this week. He rolls off fifth come Sunday.
A good none-playoff driver to watch out for this week is Kurt Busch. He's been really good at this track, he's won here twice back in 2002 and 2014. While he's had a lot of duds here over the years, he has found a knack for this racetrack. His time at Ganassi Racing is coming to an end, and what better way for him to cap off his tenure here than a good finish. He will start tenth on Sunday.
The driver that I am picking to win this week is Kyle Busch. In the round of eight, Kyle has been pretty consistent and has stayed in the top ten, but last week at Kansas it all came crumbling down like it usually does. He struggled to find any speed after a flat tire pretty much crippled his day. He was so upset that he was screaming inaudible profanities at the top of his lungs on the radio. As I mentioned earlier, Kyle is a single point ahead of Ryan Blaney for the fourth spot and really benefitted from everyone else's misfortunes, but this week, he should be the car to beat. He's been good at this racetrack with three top fives but has yet to score that first win. This Sunday, that should change. He starts seventh.
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Through 20 games, the Houston Astros have managed just six wins and are in last place in the AL West.
Their pitching staff trails only Colorado with a 5.24 ERA and big-money new closer Josh Hader has given up the same number of earned runs in 10 games as he did in 61 last year.
Despite this, these veteran Astros, who have reached the AL Championship Series seven consecutive times, have no doubt they’ll turn things around.
“If there’s a team that can do it, it’s this team,” shortstop Jeremy Peña said.
First-year manager Joe Espada, who was hired in January to replace the retired Dusty Baker, discussed his team’s early struggles.
“It’s not ideal,” he said. “It’s not what we expected, to come out of the shoot playing this type of baseball. But you know what, this is where we’re at and we’ve got to pick it up and play better. That’s just the bottom line.”
Many of Houston’s problems have stemmed from a poor performance by a rotation that has been decimated by injuries. Ace Justin Verlander and fellow starter José Urquidy haven’t pitched this season because of injuries and lefty Framber Valdez made just two starts before landing on the injured list with a sore elbow.
Ronel Blanco, who threw a no-hitter in his season debut April 1, has pitched well and is 2-0 with a 0.86 ERA in three starts this season. Cristian Javier is also off to a good start, going 2-0 with a 1.54 ERA in four starts, but the team has won just two games not started by those two pitchers.
However, Espada wouldn’t blame the rotation for Houston’s current position.
“It’s been a little bit of a roller coaster how we've played overall,” he said. “One day we get good starting pitching, some days we don’t. The middle relief has been better and sometimes it hasn’t been. So, we’ve just got to put it all together and then play more as a team. And once we start doing that, we’ll be in good shape.”
The good news for the Astros is that Verlander will make his season debut Friday night when they open a series at Washington and Valdez should return soon after him.
“Framber and Justin have been a great part of our success in the last few years,” second baseman Jose Altuve said. “So, it’s always good to have those two guys back helping the team. We trust them and I think it’s going to be good.”
Hader signed a five-year, $95 million contract this offseason to give the Astros a shutdown 7-8-9 combination at the back end of their bullpen with Bryan Abreu and Ryan Pressly. But the five-time All-Star is off to a bumpy start.
He allowed four runs in the ninth inning of a 6-1 loss to the Braves on Monday night and has yielded eight earned runs this season after giving up the same number in 56 1/3 innings for San Diego last year.
He was much better Wednesday when he struck out the side in the ninth before the Astros fell to Atlanta in 10 innings for their third straight loss.
Houston’s offense, led by Altuve, Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker, ranks third in the majors with a .268 batting average and is tied for third with 24 homers this season. But the Astros have struggled with runners in scoring position and often failed to get a big hit in close games.
While many of Houston’s hitters have thrived this season, one notable exception is first baseman José Abreu. The 37-year-old, who is in the second year of a three-year, $58.5 million contract, is hitting 0.78 with just one extra-base hit in 16 games, raising questions about why he remains in the lineup every day.
To make matters worse, his error on a routine ground ball in the eighth inning Wednesday helped the Braves tie the game before they won in extra innings.
Espada brushed off criticism of Abreu and said he knows the 2020 AL MVP can break out of his early slump.
“Because (of) history,” Espada said. “The back of his baseball card. He can do it.”
Though things haven’t gone well for the Astros so far, everyone insists there’s no panic in this team which won its second World Series in 2022.
Altuve added that he doesn’t have to say anything to his teammates during this tough time.
“I think they’ve played enough baseball to know how to control themselves and how to come back to the plan we have, which is winning games,” he said.
The clubhouse was quiet and somber Wednesday after the Astros suffered their third series sweep of the season and second at home. While not panicking about the slow start, this team, which has won at least 90 games in each of the last three seasons, is certainly not happy with its record.
“We need to do everything better,” third baseman Alex Bregman said. “I feel like we’re in a lot of games, but we just haven’t found a way to win them. And good teams find a way to win games. So we need to find a way to win games.”