Quick Hitters
Kyle Busch’s closing qualifying flurry lands Indy pole
INDIANAPOLIS — Less than an hour after watching one winning streak end Saturday, Kyle Busch started working on another.
Now the two-time defending Brickyard 400 champion is in the best possible position for an unprecedented three-peat at Indianapolis.
Busch became the first Cup driver in nearly two decades to win back-to-back Indy poles by saving his fastest lap for the final one of the day. His speed of 187.301 mph was almost a mph faster than second-place Kevin Harvick and was the second-fastest polewinning speed in the race’s 24-year history.
“Obviously, we’ve had a really fast car,” Busch said after winning his fourth pole of the season. “We’ve been focused on race trim and I felt like we did a pretty good job with that. But I wasn’t sure about qualifying. So, obviously, they were listened to what our teammates had to say.”
He couldn’t quibble with the results.
Harvick’s No. 4 Ford was second at 186.332 and Jamie McMurray, in the No. 1 Chevrolet, wound up third at 186.274. Nobody else topped 185.
If the 2015 Cup champion wins Sunday, he will join former Formula One star Michael Schumacher as the only drivers with three straight Indy wins in the premier series of their respective leagues. Schumacher won the U.S. Grand Prix four consecutive times on the road course. Nobody has ever won three straight races on Indy’s oval.
“We’ve just got to keep it there, stay up front and, of course, lead the last lap,” Busch said as his 2-year-old son, Brexton, giggled into a microphone.
For Busch, it was another marathon session on another hot, humid midsummer afternoon in the No. 18 Toyota.
He drove in both of the morning’s Cup practices, qualified for the NASCAR Xfinity Series race in the early afternoon and watched his four-race Indy winning streak snapped after a late pit stop dropped him from first to 21st. Busch finished 12th.
After about a 30-minute break, he was back in the car for three more qualifying rounds. His last lap allowed him to join Jeff Gordon (1995-96) and Ernie Irvan (199798) as the race’s only back-to-back pole winners.
Dodgers beat Braves, snap 2-game losing streak
LOS ANGELES — Chris Taylor drove in three runs with a home run and a triple, and Corey Seager and Chase Utley hit solo home runs as the Los Angeles Dodgers snapped a two-game losing streak with a 6-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves on Saturday night.
Ending the two-game hiccup which saw the Dodgers outscored 18-6, Los Angeles has won 32 of 38, and 19 of 22 at Dodger Stadium, for the best record in baseball. The Dodgers’ 67-31 mark is their best through 98 games since the Brooklyn Dodgers were 69-29 in 1942.
Taylor, who entered the game as part of a double-switch in the seventh, led off the bottom of the inning by driving an 0-1 pitch from Julio Teheran 400 feet into the left field bleachers, giving the Dodgers a 4-2 lead.
Taylor added a two-run triple off reliever Luke Jackson with two outs in the eighth for the final margin.
Dodgers starter Rich Hill (7-4) struck out eight as he held the Braves to two runs and six hits over 6 1/3 innings, winning his third decision over his last four starts.
Seager put Los Angeles ahead 1-0 in the first by crushing a 93 mph, 3-2 fastball from Teheran (7-8) 10 rows into the centerfield bleachers with one out in the first.