Kyle Busch wins Cup Series playoff race at Richmond
RICHMOND, Va. — Kyle Busch is starting to wonder why he even spends time trying to qualify well at Richmond Raceway.
Five months after winning the spring race on the 0.75-mile oval from the 32nd starting spot, Busch did even better Saturday night, winning from 39th to complete a season sweep of the NASCAR Cup Series races.
“Yeah, I’m not going to qualify here anymore,” he said after his 50th career victory, sixth at Richmond and first in the fall. “It’s a waste of time for us.”
Besides, once the green flag flies, his fortunes change.
“I don’t know why. I just cannot qualify here, but we’ve got a really good race car when it comes down time to have a race and especially the later it gets,” he said.
Busch, sent to the rear of the field at the start because of unauthorized adjustments to his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, passed Brad Keselowski with 38 laps to go and held off hard-charging Kevin Harvick.
“To start dead last, come up through the field and win this thing? That’s right Rowdy Nation. All for you, baby,” Busch said after climbing from his car. “I finally won a fall race here at Richmond.”
Harvick closed a gap of more than 1.5 seconds over the final few laps, but was not able to deprive Busch of tying him with a seasonbest seven wins this season.
Martin Truex Jr., who swept the first two stages before a penalty forced him to play catch up, rallied for third, followed by Chase Elliott and Aric Almirola.
“The problem is when you get back there, to pass those guys, you’ve got to really use up your tires,” Truex said. “We did really good for only having one caution thrown in there. It went well. We needed more cautions so we could pit for tires. What a hot-rod we had tonight . ... They rebounded well from the pit road mishap.”
It was the first time all season that the three drivers who have dominated all season claimed the top three spots in a race.
Busch and Brad Keselowski have already clinched spots in the next round of the playoff by winning the first two playoff races, and Truex joined them on points by winning the first two stages.
Busch and Keselowski, a longtime rival seeking his fourth consecutive victory in the series, battled for the lead for much of the last 100-plus laps. Keselowski grabbed the top spot on lap 343, but Busch took it back 20 laps later before Keselowski faded, eventually finishing ninth, and Harvick picked up the chase.
“I thought he used a little more when he was racing with Keselowski there, and he drove off a little bit and I started driving him back down at the end,” Harvick said.
The race unfolded much like the spring race in April when Joey Logano swept the first two stages, each run without an on-track caution.
This time, it was Truex who completed the sweep, but then his team burned him on pit road. During the caution between the second and third stages, Truex’s team was penalized for an uncontrolled tire, dropping him to 19th place. After leading 159 laps, he had to play catch up. Like Logano, who wound up fourth in the spring, Truex never quite caught up, finishing 5.8 seconds off the lead.
The defending series champion remains the points leader by 16 over Busch, 28 over Harvick and 30 over Keselowski.
The night was not as eventful as local favorite Denny Hamlin had hoped.
Hamlin, who grew up about 20 miles from the track, started the night 16th in the playoff standings and with hopes of winning stage points and a top finish. He got spun by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. about halfway through the opening stage, had to pit under a green flag but scrambled all the way back to ninth before the stage was completed.
He didn’t make it in the top 10 on the second stage, and then tried to reprise his fresh tire surge by pitting under green with about 75 laps to go. But while he was on pit road under a green flag, Matt Kenseth made contact with Jeffrey Earnhardt, who spun into the wall and brought out a caution, putting Hamlin a lap down. The Chesterfield native finished 16th.
The caution was the only on because of an on-track incident all night.
Clint Bowyer (4 points), seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson (6), Erik Jones (21) and Hamlin (29) will start next week’s race at Charlotte as the bottom four in the playoffs.
PHOENIX — Antonio Senzatela picked a great night for perhaps his best outing of the season.
The Colorado right-hander allowed three hits in seven strong innings and the Rockies kept pace in their playoff push with a 5-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday night.
With eight games to play, the Rockies trail the firstplace Los Angeles Dodgers by 1 1/2 games in the NL West and are 1 1/2 behind St. Louis for the final NL wild-card spot.
“We don’t have many games left,” Colorado catcher Chris Iannetta said. “We need some help from teams ahead of us to lose some games and we have to win a bunch. It’s going to be difficult but we’ll just try to win one each day and be happy.”
Arizona, meanwhile, has lost 11 out of 14 and is on the brink of mathematical elimination from playoff contention with a week to go.
Iannetta drove in two with a bases-loaded single in Colorado’s four-run third inning against Patrick Corbin (11-7). Iannetta got a third RBI when Brad Boxberger walked him with the bases loaded in the ninth.
Senzatela (6-6) retired the first 14 batters before A.J. Pollock hit a 1-1 pitch just over the left-field wall, Pollock’s 19th homer of the season, with two outs in the fifth.
Senzatela thought it was his best performance of the season, considering the circumstance.
“I had a lot of confidence in my fastball, the action of my fastball down in the zone,” he said through a translator. “I just felt I could throw it at any point and I was going to have good results.”
The only other batters to reach base against the Colorado right-hander were Alex Avila, whose leadoff single in the sixth was erased by a double play, and Eduardo Escobar, who singled to lead off the seventh.
Senzatela, who has won his last two outings after going 0-3 in his previous four, threw just 75 pitches, allowing a run and striking out four with no walks.
“Tonight was big for him, man,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “He’s still growing as a pitcher but a great job tonight. Repeated his delivery outstanding . ... He’s an aggressive pitcher who attacks.”
A hit batter and two walks by Corbin loaded the bases for Colorado with two outs in the third. Iannetta lashed a two-run single, David Dahl followed with an RBI single down the rightfield line, Garrett Hampson drove in another with a single to center and the Rockies led 4-0.
In his shortest outing of the season, Corbin went three innings, allowing four runs and five hits with four walks, a hit batter and five strikeouts. He threw 44 pitches in the third inning alone.
“There’s no secrets with Corbin said,” Black sad. “This guy’s an All-Star pitcher with maybe, arguably one of the best sliders in the game and I thought overall we did a pretty good job of laying off on the low slider.”
It may have been Corbin’s final home game as a Diamondback. He becomes a free agent after this season.
“I wasn’t the type of outing I was expecting out of Patrick,” Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said. “He got nicked up with a 44-pitch third inning and by that time, I guess as you look at the final score of the game, the damage has been done. ... I am disappointed in a lot of things over the past several weeks and you can go ahead and say the entire year.”
Colorado’s Charlie Blackmon singled twice to extend his hitting streak to 14 games, tying a career high.
UP NEXT
Colorado sends LHP Kyle Freeland (15-7, 2.95 ERA) to the mound and Arizona counters with RHP Zack Godley (14-10, 4.79) Sunday in the final meeting of the teams this season.