Pirate Galaxy » beled the bat and safely stored it. Bryant flied

LONG POND, Pa. -- Martin Truex Jr. has one of his four career Sprint Cup wins at Pocono Raceway.He added his 10th career pole, too.Truex extended Toyotas recent romp, and turned a lap of 179.244 mph to win the pole Friday.Truex and Carl Edwards made it a 1-2 Toyota front row. Edwards just missed the top spot for Joe Gibbs Racing with a lap of 178.873 and he thought his No. 19 Toyota might have had enough to best Truexs chart-topping speed.That must have felt really good because mine was great, Edwards said.Toyota has 10 wins this season and nine in the last 15 races, highlighted by consecutive wins by JGR drivers Matt Kenseth at New Hampshire and Kyle Busch last weekend at the Brickyard.Its a really neat time to be driving a Toyota for Joe Gibbs, Edwards said. Hopefully, we can keep this rolling.Truex won his third pole of the season in the Furniture Row Racing No. 78 Toyota and the 10th of his career. His win this season at Charlotte Motor Speedway might have been the most dominant performance by any Toyota driver in a race in years.Paul Menard, Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman completed the top five.Driving for Richard Childress Racing, Menard posted the surprise performances of the day at Pocono. Menard has just two top-10 finishes all season and showed no signs of developing into a threat for making the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.But a crew chief switch might make the difference.Menard topped the lone practice chart in his first race weekend with crew chief Danny Stockman. RCR dumped Justin Alexander for Stockman for Menards stretch run.Stockman has won two Xfinity championships during his seven years at RCR and he and Menard worked together in that series, including a win last year at Road America.Menard made Sprint Cups championship chase last year, but stands 23rd -- and out of the playoffs -- with just six races left in the regular season.RCR as a whole, we dont like to suck, Stockman said. We have been really digging hard as a company to not suck. Its not fun. Your people get beat down. Everybody at the shop, we have all the tools to do this right.RCR had a rare stout day at the track, with three drivers in top 12. Austin Dillon was 12th.Here are other items of note from Friday at Pocono:KEZELOWSKIS RECOVERY:Brad Keselowski starts seventh only days after he was involved in a brutal wreck during a test session at Watkins Glen.He slammed nose-first into a protective tire barrier coming out of the first turn and tore up the entire front end of the No. 2 Ford. The Team Penske driver walked away unhurt and he blamed an improperly installed brake line on the crash.Keselowski, the 2012 Sprint Cup champion, said the latest wreck at The Glen has him concerned about the safety of drivers on road course tracks.Theres only so many of those hits youre gonna take before someone gets killed, Keselowski said. Its just the way it is. I know that. Its not something Im comfortable with. ... Odds are, that if 100 people take that hit, one or two are not gonna be standing here anymore.GORDONS RUNSix-time Pocono winner Jeff Gordon qualified -- yup, 24th -- in his second race driving for the injured Dale Earnhardt Jr.Earnhardt missed his third straight race because of concussion-like symptoms and there is no timetable for his return.Gordon came out of retirement to drive Earnhardts No. 88 Chevrolet. His familiar No. 24 now belongs to fellow Hendrick Motorsports driver Chase Elliott.Earnhardt warned Monday that his return to NASCAR could take longer than planned.I wish Dale a speedy recovery. Id like him to be back in the car, Gordon said. But at the same time if hes not, I feel like each time Im in the car Ill be more confident and comfortable to get better results.QUALIFYING HICCUPCup qualifying was pushed back about 20 minutes because of a glitch in the Laser Inspection Station. Several cars had not passed inspection when qualifying was scheduled to start. Kyle Busch did not pass inspection until the final minutes of the first round of qualifying.HARVICKS STARTKevin Harvick starts 17th with Dax Gerringer serving as his interim crew chief.NASCAR suspended Rodney Childers for an improperly installed lug nut at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.Childers is the fifth crew chief suspended over a lug nut rule instituted by NASCAR earlier this season. The rule was put in place because teams were not applying all five lug nuts properly in an effort to have faster pit stops.Gerringer is Harvicks race engineer. Custom Tony Phillips Jersey . -- An ugly goal by Nick Bonino helped the Anaheim Ducks overcome the defensive-minded Phoenix Coyotes on a night when their ragged power play continued to struggle. Custom Athletics Jersey China .Y. - Free agent outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury, fresh off winning the World Series with Boston, reached agreement with the rival New York Yankees on a seven-year contract worth about $153 million, a person familiar with the negotiations said Tuesday night. http://www.customathleticsjersey.com/ . Thats about all he can do right now, so hes trying not to think about when he might be able to play again for the Los Angeles Lakers. Custom Athletics Jerseys . Woodson said during a radio interview Thursday that the Knicks Carmelo Anthony doesnt get the same calls as other superstars. Wholesale Custom Athletics Shirts . Soukalova missed only one target and completed the 15-kilometre course in 40 minutes, 32.6 seconds for both victories in this seasons individual discipline. Darya Domracheva of Belarus was second, 34. CINCINNATI -- Manager Joe Maddons move was so wacky that even his own players laughed. And when it worked better than anyone could have imagined, the Cubs were celebrating again.Kris Bryant singled home the tiebreaking run in the 15th inning, and Maddon used three pitchers in left field while Chicago beat the Cincinnati Reds 7-2 on Tuesday night in the longest game of the season for both teams.With the Cubs out of position players, relievers Travis Wood and Spencer Patton (1-0) alternated between left field and the mound in the 14th inning, which ended with Patton getting the final out. Wood then finished it off with reliever Pedro Strop in left.When I went out there to do it originally, the infielders were kind of giggling, said Maddon, who had never done anything like it as a manager.It worked perfectly as things started falling in place for the Cubs again.Bryants only hit on Tuesday -- a single off J.J. Hoover (1-2) -- snapped the tie. Javier Baez added a grand slam in the 15th, the sixth career allowed by Hoover, which is a Reds record. Then it was just a matter of figuring out how to finish it off.For the left fielder to pitch to one batter and then go back -- yeah, thats crazy, Baez said. But we had fun.The National Leagues top team went 1-6 last week but has pulled out of the downturn by winning the first two games of a series against the Reds. The Cubs hit five homers -- three by Bryant -- while taking the opener 11-8.Eugenio Suarez singled home the tying run with two outs in the ninth off Hector Rondon, his third blown save in 16 chances, setting the game on its meandering course.There were a lot of instances that suggest things were going to go our way, but we werent able to get it done, Reds manager Bryan Price said. Thats a tough one, a really tough one.Maddon had talked to Wood about playing left field in such a circumstance. The reliever hadnt played outfield since high school, but takes fly balls during batting practice to stay ready. None of the Reds hit the ball to left field with a Cubs reliever out there, which was a disappointment for Wood.It was definitely interesting, a lot of fun, Wood said.dddddddddddd. I would have liked to have recorded an out.Ben Zobrist led off the game with a homer off left-hander John Lamb. Left-hander Jon Lester singled home another run and allowed only one hit until the eighth inning, when Billy Hamilton homered. The Cubs closer couldnt hold on.A lot of the focus Tuesday was on Bryant, who was coming off a historic performance.Bryant became the first major league player to hit three homers and two doubles in a game on Monday night. He set a Cubs record with 16 total bases and became the youngest Cubs player to hit three homers in a game since Ernie Banks did it in 1955, also at the age of 24.Bryant broke his three-homer bat the first time up on Tuesday, cracking it on a groundout. The bat boy retrieved it and took it to the Major League Baseball authenticator, who labeled the bat and safely stored it. Bryant flied out, walked twice, fouled out with two runners aboard for the final out in the 10th, and struck out in the 13th before driving in the go-ahead run.SO UNUSUALThe last time a Cubs pitcher played the outfield was 2009 when Sean Marshall was in left.TRAINERS ROOMReds: RHP Homer Bailey felt fine a day after throwing an inning in his first rehab start. Bailey, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery 13 months ago, is expected to pitch again on Saturday. ... 2B Brandon Phillips fouled a ball off the inside of his left foot in the first inning. He fouled another pitch off the same foot in his next at-bat and got hit in the left side by a pitch from Rondon in the ninth.UP NEXTCubs: Kyle Hendricks (5-6, 2.76) is 1-5 with a 3.79 ERA in seven road starts this season. Hes 4-1 with a 1.93 ERA in seven home games.Reds: Cody Reed (0-1, 6.75) makes his third career start. In his first appearance at Great American Ball Park last Friday, he gave up five runs in five innings of a 13-4 loss to the Padres.---Follow Joe Kay on Twitter: http://twitter.com/apjoekay ' ' '