(BASEBALL)—Red State Missouri (Cardinals) and Blue State Missouri (Royals) are providing early-season optimism to their fans by with winning first weekends.
The Cardinals started with two straight wins over the Pirates, 9-0 behind six scoreless innings from Adam Wainwright in the first game and home runs from Tyler O’Neill, Tommy Edman, and Nolan Arenado. Miles Mikolas struggled through a 41-pitch first inning and wasn’t around for the decision in a 6-2 win that featured Paul Dejong’s first homer of the year in the second game. But new acquisition Steven Matz was bombed early in the third game of the series, won by Pittsburgh 9-3. Arenado had another home run. The Cardinals scored in the first innings of their first three games of the season for the first time since 1977.
The scheduled fourth game of the series was rained out Monday and will be made up as a doubleheader later.
Albert Pujols started the season opener, his 22nd consecutive season opening start (second best in MLB history) but did not play the next two games. He was 0-5 in his first role as a DH for the Cardinals.
The Royals went 2-2 to open the season, spoiling the debut of the Guardians uniforms of the former Cleveland Indians in the first two games of the series then getting hammered in the last two games. The Royals won the first game 3-1 then edged the Guardians 1-0 in ten innings before being clobbered 17-3 on Sunday and outslugged 10-7 in game four.
The Royals and Cardinals have a two-game interleague series today and tomorrow in St. Louis. Dakota Hudson will start tonight against Daniel Lynch, with Zack Greinke and Adam Wainwright getting their second starts of the season tomorrow night.
(INDYCAR)—Team Penske has gone three for three to open the 2022 INDYCAR season and Josef Newgarden is on a two-race winning streak.
Newgarden had to hold off Romain Grosjean for the final 15 laps on the streets of Long Beach, particularly during the last five laps after the final caution. Grosjean made several runs at Newgarden but could not get even with him. Newgarden’s two straight wins have put him top the points standings. He was the series champion in 2017 and 2019.
Team Penske is off to its biggest start since 2012 when it won the first four races. Chip Ganassi Racing was the last team to start the year with three straight wins, two years ago.
Colton Herta had a stranglehold on the field for the first 29 laps before crashing because of a “stupid mistake.”
Defending series champion Alex Palou picked up the last podium position.
Long Beach was a trying weekend for seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson who crashed twice in practice, the first time breaking a bone in his hand, and then crashed out of the race with a dozen laps left.
(NASCAR)—NASCAR’s first night race at The Paperclip was dominated by two teammates who led 397 of the 403 laps (two in overtime). Pole sitter Chase Elliott led the first 185 laps at Martinsville but it was William Byron who controlled things the rest of the way to become the first two-time winner this year in the Cup series.
The race usually is 500 laps but it was cut to 400 this year.
Byron had to survive a two-lap overtime shootout with Joey Logano who couldn’t get the jump from outside on the overtime start and couldn’t get close enough to Byron to bump him out of the way. Byron finished three-tenths of a second in front. Elliott faded to tenth.
Martinsville, a .526-mile track likened to a paper clip because of its tight turns and long straights, often is the scene of numerous bumps and spins. But Saturday’s nights race drew only four caution periods, only two of which were because of on-track incident (the other two were pauses at the end of the first two stages of the race). The four cautions were the fewest since 1997.
Elliott and Byron combined to give team owner Rick Hendrick a special distinction. Hendrick Motorsports is now the first operation to field cars combining to lead 10,000 laps at a single race track.
(FORMULA 1)—Ferrari and Charles Leclerc are the hot setup in Formula 1 through the first three races of 2022 while defending F1 Champion Max Verstappen and Red Bull are struggling.
Leclerc won the Grand Prix of Australia during the weekend by twenty seconds over Red Bull’s number two driver, Sergio Perez while Verstappen fumed about his second mechanical failure that has left him 46 points behind in the championship chase.
Mercedes seems far from the dominant team it has been for several years although George Russell did finish third, one slot above teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Leclerc with two wins and a second-place is 34 points up on Russell in the early standings. He’s the only driver with three podiums this year.