SAN FRANCISCO -- Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said the injury that sent left-hander Derek Holland to the injured list last month was legitimate, and he praised the veteran's competitive spirit the day after Holland said he was sidelined with a "fake injury."

Zaidi said Sunday that medical records back up the legitimacy of Holland's injury, described by the team as a bone bruise on his left index finger. He said there are often differences of opinion between players and management about the severity of injuries.

"The guy gets hit by a truck, he can't walk out on the field. That's, I guess, an unequivocal injury, but there's a lot of gray area beyond that," Zaidi said.

Holland blasted the Giants' front office Saturday night after he learned from manager Bruce Bochy that he was being moved to the bullpen.

"To be honest, I have no idea what they're doing," Holland said. "I don't mean that by Bochy and them. It's more the front office. They keep changing a lot of things. I did a fake injury. I'm not happy about that. But at the end of the day, I'm going to do whatever they ask me to do."

Bochy told reporters on Sunday that he spoke with Holland about his comments and expressed his disappointment that Holland aired his gripes publicly. Bochy also said he planned to talk to the team about Holland's comments.

"You've got to do the right thing," Bochy told reporters. "I wish he'd have vented his frustration in a different way. I know Derek wishes he'd vented his frustration in a different way."

The 32-year-old was placed on the injured list April 29, retroactive to the previous day. In his first outing after being activated, Holland gave up seven runs in 2 2/3 innings Thursday at Colorado amid heavy snowfall.

"I feel equally bad that when he did get back out there, it was in a blizzard," Zaidi said. "I don't know how much of kind of the cold and weather, interacting with whatever lack of feel he has in the finger, contributed to what happened in Colorado."

Zaidi said Holland didn't want to go on the IL last month and was told he would miss only one start.

"Guys want to play," Zaidi said. "I love the fact that Derek wants to be out there. That's one of the reasons we brought him back."

Holland signed a one-year, $7 million contract in January to return to San Francisco for a second year. He is 1-4 with a 6.75 ERA.

Zaidi stood by comments he made to the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday about Holland's injury. He told the newspaper that Holland had an MRI and the decision to put him on the IL was "collaboratively made."

"His use of the word 'fake' probably comes from him feeling he could continue to pitch with it," Zaidi told the Chronicle.

On Sunday, Zaidi said Holland's anger was understandable, given the team's struggles. The Giants are last in the NL West.

"There's a lot of frustration right now. We're not playing as well as we'd like," Zaidi said. "I think fans are frustrated. As a front office we're frustrated. I understand players being frustrated, but we're going to do everything we can every day to get better."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

So George Springer had a pretty good Mother's Day as the Houston Astros beat the Texas Rangers 15-5:

First inning: home run to left-center.

Second inning: line drive single to left field.

Fourth inning: line single to left field.

Fifth inning: ground ball single to right field.

Sixth inning: home run to left-center.

Unfortunately, Springer was on deck for the final out of the eighth inning, so he missed an opportunity to go 6-for-6 for the second time in his career. Joe Morgan is the only other player in Astros history to go 6-for-6 and, according to the Baseball-Reference Play Index, the only players with two 6-for-6 games since 1908 are Doc Cramer and Jim Bottomley.

Springer's second home run clocked 106.4 mph and landed on the train tracks to complete a 5-at-bat, 5-run, 5-hit, 4-RBI afternoon and give him the American League lead with 15 home runs:

Mama said knock you out. #TakeItBack pic.twitter.com/dIB4ouHPLq

— Houston Astros (@astros) May 12, 2019

Springer has been on an absolute tear -- .486 with six home runs and 13 RBIs over his past nine games -- and is hitting .321/.400/.660 overall, putting him in the early chase for best player in the American League this season. Springer is a two-time All-Star and had a 5.1-WAR season in 2016, and we saw him rip the Dodgers apart in the 2017 World Series when he homered five times (he has a career .638 slugging percentage in 32 postseason games), but there's the possibility that Springer hasn't quite had that pinnacle season.

He has shown flashes of top-five MVP play, especially in the first half of 2017 when he hit .310 with 27 home runs in 83 games but suffered a quad injury in the second half and settled for 34 home runs in 140 games. Springer was dinged up much of 2018 -- back, thumb, shoulder -- and again played 140 games while hitting .265 with 22 home runs.

He's healthy now and recording career highs in various Statcast categories: exit velocity (91.8, up 3.2 mph from 2018), launch angle (11.0 degrees, up from 9.5 in 2018 and 9.4 in 2017) and hard-hit rate (56.5 percent compared to 37.2 last year and 42.6 in 2017). All those numbers portend his best season yet if he can remain focused and healthy for 150-plus games.

Alex Bregman also had two home runs to help the Astros complete a four-game sweep. (Houston has scored in double digits in five of its past 11 games.) It also gave us this fun factoid: This was only the fourth time a team's Nos. 1 and 2 hitters hit multiple home runs. The first three:

Aug. 25, 1891: Jimmy Ryan and Walt Wilmot for the Chicago Colts (current Cubs franchise) at home vs. Brooklyn

Aug. 22, 2010: Omar Infante and Jason Heyward for the Braves at Wrigley Field

Sept. 26, 2017: Teoscar Hernandez and Josh Donaldson for the Blue Jays at Fenway Park

Astros show off pitching depth: Corbin Martin made his major league debut in this game for the Astros and gave up two runs and three hits in 5⅓ innings while recording nine strikeouts. Martin was Keith Law's No. 48 overall prospect entering the season, a Texas A&M product and second-round pick in 2017 who has advanced quickly with a fastball that reached 98 mph against the Rangers and averaged 95.7.

Show time. @martin_corbin's first career strikeout: 97, paint. #TakeItBack pic.twitter.com/3y2VO7lCgb

— Houston Astros (@astros) May 12, 2019

Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Wade Miley have been excellent at the top of the Houston rotation, but AJ Hinch has been looking for some consistent production at the back of the rotation. Martin replaced Collin McHugh in the rotation after McHugh gave up 25 runs and eight home runs in his past 18 innings.

Martin grew up in Hempstead, an hour outside of Houston, and was an Astros fan as a kid. He has even pitched before at Minute Maid Field. With his mom and grandmother in the stands Sunday -- along with other family and friends -- he picked up his first major league victory.

Ryu continues to roll: Dodgers lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu lost his no-hit bid with one out in the eighth inning when Gerardo Parra doubled to deep left-center. He actually should have lost the bid in the sixth inning when Stephen Strasburg lined an apparent base hit to right field, only to have this happen:

This is fine. Everything is fine. pic.twitter.com/oCsgfwUKGb

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) May 12, 2019

Ryu settled for eight scoreless innings -- on the heels of a four-hit shutout over the Braves in his previous start:

Hyun-jin Ryu is the first non-Kershaw Dodgers lefty to throw back-to-back shutout starts of 8 innings or more since Rick Honeycutt on 6/5-6/10/1986.

— Kazuto Yamazaki (@Kazuto_Yamazaki) May 12, 2019

Ryu has given up one run in 25 innings over his past three starts, lowering his ERA to 1.72, and has a season strikeout-to-walk ratio of 54-to-3. ESPN's Alden Gonzalez just wrote about Ryu, a story in which catcher Russell Martin compared him to Hall of Famer Greg Maddux with his pinpoint location this year. Indeed, his shutout against the Braves required only 93 pitches, a sub-100 pitch shutout referred to as a "Maddux."

As Gonzalez wrote ...

Ryu's success is a product of expertly sequencing five pitches -- fastball, cutter, sinker, curveball, changeup -- and throwing them to all four quadrants of the strike zone, a quality Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes considers "pretty unique." Ryu creates deception with his delivery, pinpoint control and near unpredictability in his pitch selection.

Dodgers hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc spent the 2018 season as a strategist with the division-rival Arizona Diamondbacks and found it almost impossible to craft game plans for Ryu.

"He doesn't have any consistent tendencies," Van Scoyoc said. "He knows how to pitch, he knows how to change speeds, and I think he reads the hitters very well. Even if he has a plan, he'll deviate from it. There's just not anything consistent about how he attacks each guy."

Of course, Ryu has a long list of injuries during his six seasons with the Dodgers, missing all of 2015, pitching in only one game in 2016 and making only 15 starts last season because of a groin strain. After he threw a career-high 116 pitches in the 6-0 victory over the Nationals, the Dodgers might want to give him an extra day of rest before his next start. No team is more cautious with its starting pitchers than the Dodgers.

Yankees, Red Sox close in on Rays: The Rays have had a great start at 24-15, they've given up the fewest runs in the majors, the Yankees have battled a bazillion injuries and the Red Sox got off to a dreadful start and ... yet. The AL East now looks like this after Masahiro Tanaka outdueled Blake Snell and the Red Sox pounded the Mariners for the third game in row:

Rays: --
Yankees: ½ game back
Red Sox: 3 games back

Tanaka threw only 73 pitches in seven innings, giving up five hits and one run with seven K's.

Just lights out stuff: https://t.co/4hg2qrzgqS

Powered by @Biofreeze pic.twitter.com/vM065s4P7p

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) May 12, 2019

Compare that to Snell, who was more dominant with 12 strikeouts in 5⅔ innings but threw 96 pitches and had a relatively early exit (the Yankees tacked on five runs against the Tampa bullpen). As good as the Rays have been, we know this division is likely to come down to head-to-head action against the big, bad rivals, and they're now 1-5 at home against the two clubs.

Since their 6-13 start, the Red Sox have gone 16-6, including 11-2 over their past 13 games. They scored 34 runs in the series against Seattle. In those first 19 games, the Red Sox were outscored by 42 runs. In the next 22, they outscored their opponents by 69 runs. It appears the World Series hangover has ended.

Bumgarner trade stuff: The Giants beat the Reds 6-5 with two runs in the eighth inning as Madison Bumgarner picked up a no-decision with four runs allowed (two earned) in six innings. He gave up a home run to Yasiel Puig and reacted in classic Bumgarner fashion after the game: "He's a quick study. It only took him seven years to learn how to hit that pitch."

On Saturday, Ken Rosenthal tweeted that Bumgarner had submitted a list of eight teams he can block a trade to: Braves, Red Sox, Cubs, Astros, Brewers, Yankees, Phillies and Cardinals.

As Rosenthal pointed out, that's a list of teams most likely to be interested in Bumgarner, so it's more a strategic ploy on Bumgarner's part to gain some leverage if the Giants do look to trade him. That could include blocking a trade to a team he doesn't want to play for in favor of one he prefers. Note that a trade isn't necessarily a bad thing for Bumgarner since players traded during the season are not eligible to receive a qualifying offer in free agency (which could hurt a player's value in free agency as might be the case with Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel).

Strategic move of the day: The Pirates are carrying 13 pitchers on their active roster and, as I've written before, carrying only four bench players in the National League inevitably leaves the manager's hands tied. Most managers refuse to use their backup catcher (even though the odds of an injury that would require the use of a non-catcher behind the plate are exceedingly slim) so that means you're really playing with three bench players unless circumstances finally require using the backup catcher, usually only in extra innings to pinch hit.

The Cardinals led the Pirates 6-3 in the sixth inning with the Pirates batting, one out, nobody on base and the pitcher up. A pretty low-leverage situation, but one you would certainly want to send up a position player to hopefully start a rally. Instead, with a limited bench, Clint Hurdle sent up pitcher Joe Musgrove to hit. He grounded out and the Pirates went down 1-2-3.

Pittsburgh rallied to win the game anyway, scoring five in the seventh and two in the eighth. In the seventh, after Josh Bell tied the score with a three-run homer, Melky Cabrera later hit for shortstop Cole Tucker and walked with two outs. Adam Frazier then hit for the pitcher and doubled in two runs:

Adam doing pinch hitter type things. pic.twitter.com/QVpC0m5MXr

— Pirates (@Pirates) May 12, 2019

So by not using one of his pinch hitters in the sixth, Hurdle still had two available in the seventh. I still don't know if it was the right decision, but on this day it worked.

Bell, by the way, continues to rake, going 4-for-5 with five RBIs, and is now hitting .319/.389/.659. The numbers are legit with more line drives, a lower ground ball rate and increased average exit velocity -- from 90 mph last year to 94.6, which ranks fifth in the majors.

I don't know exactly what to make of the Pirates; they're now tied with the Cardinals in the standings, but the Cardinals have a 55-run differential advantage. That's one reason FanGraphs projects the Cardinals with a 40 percent chance to make the playoffs and the Pirates at 11 percent. The Pirates even have an eight-game losing streak milked into their 22-19 record. Of course, the Cardinals won the opener of this four-game series 17-4 ... but the Pirates won the next three, including 2-1 wins on Friday and Saturday.

Britain's Dan Evans and Cameron Norrie both recorded victories to qualify for the Italian Open main draw.

Evans, ranked 81st in the world, overcame top seed and Monte Carlo Masters finalist Dusan Lajovic of Serbia 7-5 6-3.

British number two Norrie saved two match points to beat Chile's Nicolas Jarry 6-3 4-6 7-6 (8-6).

They join British number one Kyle Edmund - who plays Spain's Fernando Verdasco in the first round - in Rome.

Evans' victory over Lajovic was a career-best on clay, with Lajovic ranked 57 places above him.

The 28-year-old beat Dutch tenth seed Robin Haase 6-2 6-4 in the first round of qualifying, while 45th-ranked Norrie, 23, beat Germany's Peter Gojowczyk 5-7 7-5 6-3.

World number one Novak Djokovic, defending champion Rafael Nadal and 20-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer are all in the Rome draw.

World number one Novak Djokovic beat a tired-looking Stefanos Tsitsipas to win the Madrid Open for a third time.

The Serbian, 31, beat Rafael Nadal's semi-final conqueror 6-3 6-4 in one hour 32 minutes to earn a record-equalling 33rd Masters 1000 title.

Djokovic raced into a 3-0 lead in the opening set after breaking the 20-year-old Greek in the second game.

And he broke in the ninth game of the second set to ensure he didn't drop a set all tournament.

"I wasn't playing my best tennis after the Australian Open so I was looking to regain momentum," Djokovic told Sky Sports. "I played some of my best tennis here."

On his opponent, he added: "He's very talented, he beat Rafa yesterday, he had a late night and he wasn't as dynamic in his movement and that was probably due to his long match."

Tsitsipas, who beat Roger Federer at the Australian Open, has had a superb season and in addition to his win over Nadal, had won the previous match against Djokovic at the Rogers Cup in Toronto last August.

But he struggled to match the 15-time Grand Slam champion, who had superior energy after overcoming Austrian Dominic Thiem in the semi-finals.

More to follow.

IMOLA, Italy – Jonathan Rea kept his World Superbike rally going on Sunday by topping the 10-lap Superpole race at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari for his second win of the season.

Sunday’s full-distance event was cancelled due to heavy rain, leaving only two of the three scheduled events complete during the Imola weekend, just as in Assen earlier on.

Rea, who had already snapped Alvaro Bautista’s 11-race win streak to open the season on Saturday, had a run for the lead right off the start on polesitter Chaz Davies, though he couldn’t capitalize after running wide at the left-hand Tosa corner.

However, Davies overshot the final chicane at the end of the opening lap, losing both the lead to Rea and second to Bautista as a result.

Rea began to escape into clean air on lap four, with Davies eventually re-passing Bautista for second when the latter ran wide at the Rivazza corner.

That was of no consequence to Rea, however, as he drove off to a two-second victory over the two Ducatis of Davies and Bautista.

Michael van der Mark crossed fourth for Yamaha, with the second Yamaha of Alex Lowes completing the top five.

Leon Haslam, Toprak Razgatlioglu, Tom Sykes, Jordi Torres and Markus Reiterberger finished sixth through 10th, respectively.

Sunday’s win was the record-extending 71st of Rea’s World Superbike career.

BARCELONA, Spain – Lewis Hamilton was not going to be denied on Sunday at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, leading all 66 laps en route to victory in the Formula One Emirates Spanish Grand Prix.

Hamilton blistered Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas on the initial start, sweeping into the race lead at turn one and never looking back.

Despite a late restart with 14 laps to go, after a turn-two collision between Lando Norris and Lance Stroll necessitated a safety-car period, Hamilton raced away from Bottas down the stretch for his third win in five races this year and the 76th of his Formula One career.

It was the fifth time that Mercedes has finished first and second to open the season.

Sunday’s win was Hamilton’s third in a row in Barcelona, making him the first driver since Michael Schumacher to earn a hat trick of Spanish Grand Prix victories.

Schumacher won four straight from 2001 to 2004.

Hamilton also retook the lead in the F-1 driver’s championship from Bottas by virtue of his dominant performance.

“This is history in the making, to have five (Mercedes) one-twos, and I’m really proud to be a part of that,” said Hamilton. “It’s definitely been a bit of a hard first four races, because while we’ve had a great car, we haven’t always gotten along. It was nice to settle our differences in the race and get away well.

“It was an interesting start. … I saw the red car get around the back of both of us, and I had no idea whether they were further ahead, but I assumed they were,” Hamilton added. “I knew that Valtteri would be braking super deep, but it wasn’t a replay of Baku, at least.”

Hamilton never ceded the point once getting out front, starting on Pirelli’s soft tires and making his lone green-flag pit stop on lap 28, taking a set of medium-compound tires at that juncture.

A potentially-delaminating tire was a cause for concern for Hamilton in the second half of the race, but when Norris tagged Stroll around at turn two with 20 to go and brought out the yellow, Hamilton was able to make another pit stop for fresh rubber without giving up control of the race.

From there, the Briton nailed the final restart on lap 53 of 66 and took off, setting the fastest lap of the race as well on the final run and picking up a bonus point toward the championship for his efforts.

“I’ve not had a fastest lap all year, so that feels good too,” Hamilton noted. “It’s about time.”

Though Bottas took the pole position on Saturday during qualifying, he simply couldn’t match his teammate’s pace when it mattered and came home 4.074 seconds adrift at the checkered flag.

“I lost that race at the start,” lamented Bottas. “It was like … biting and releasing, biting and releasing, which I’d never felt before. As a team, this is incredible … and I got some good points. Every single point is going to count this year, but I’m keen to find out why the start was so bad and what the issue was.”

Max Verstappen completed the podium, moving to third in points as a result after outpacing the Ferrari duo of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc for most of the afternoon.

“It was a hectic first corner, so I backed out of it, and that actually gave me good positioning after the first three corners,” reflected Verstappen. “From there on, the Mercedes cars were too quick, but I could do my own pace and we were competitive. I’m happy to be on the podium after this one.”

Vettel and Leclerc’s positions were up in the air for most of the day, with Leclerc let through on team orders early after Vettel picked up a flat spot on the opening lap. Vettel was later allowed to repass Leclerc when the latter was moved to a one-stop strategy and was slower on hard tires.

The four-time F-1 champion ended up fourth in the final rundown, with Leclerc finishing fifth.

Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly, Haas F1’s Kevin Magnussen, McLaren’s Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat and the second Haas entry of Romain Grosjean completed the points-scoring drivers in the top 10.

The finish:

Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas, Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel, Charles Leclerc, Pierre Gasly, Kevin Magnussen, Carlos Sainz, Daniil Kvyat, Romain Grosjean, Alexander Albon, Daniel Ricciardo, Nico Hulkenberg, Kimi Raikkonen, Sergio Perez, Antonio Giovinazzi, George Russell, Robert Kubica, Lance Stroll, Lando Norris.

CONCORD, N.C. — Michael Self is no fool.

The ARCA Menards Series regular and the driver of the No. 25 Toyota for Venturini Motorsports has been around racing for a long time. At 28 years old, he’s pretty sure he won’t be racing in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series anytime soon.

In fact, Self doubts he’ll ever make it that far, and he’s OK with that.

“That would be a great goal to have, but I’m not going to sit here and tell you that is a goal of mine because I know how unrealistic it is,” Self said. “I don’t want to be disappointed if it doesn’t happen.”

Self has had his fair share of success at the lower levels of NASCAR. From late 2010 through the 2013 season, Self drove for Jim Offenbach in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West and was a Richard Childress Racing developmental driver.

He earned six victories in three full seasons of racing for Offenbach, but his career stalled after the 2013 season and he was left rideless due to a lack of sponsorship.

“I’ll sit here and tell you honestly that I was never slated to go up the Richard Childress ladder by any means, because we didn’t have the financial resources to do it,” Self acknowledged. “Even though I was technically an RCR development driver, that didn’t mean the money was just there.

“After the 2013 season, we didn’t have any sponsorship because I had been funded by my dad up until that point and we didn’t have the money to go on any further,” Self added. “In 2014, I knew I still wanted to race. I’d only known racing up until that point. I didn’t know what else I would do.”

The next few years were rough for Self. He moved to Charlotte, N.C., in 2014 and began knocking on doors in search of a job. He was a spotter and driver coach at Turner Scott Motorsports, working with Kaz Grala and Justin Haley.

From 2014 through ’16, Self was rarely on the race track. In 2014, he ran a pair of ARCA Menards Series races. In 2015, he raced in seven NASCAR Xfinity Series events for JD Motorsports.

In 2016, he ran just one race — the ARCA finale at Kansas Speedway. It was the turning point in his career. However, in the months leading up to that race, Self admits he nearly gave up racing.

“I kind of had … I don’t want to say given up, but I had succumbed to the fact that you know, I’m probably not going to race again,” Self said. “I’d been searching for sponsors and trying to do my own thing. I’d kind of just gotten sick of it.

“I went back to school that year,” Self continued. “I decided I wanted to go to college and get a degree and focus on that.”

Everything changed for Self after his father cold-called someone with the Sinclair Oil Corp.

“My dad called up and basically was like ‘my son races cars, and we’d like to talk to you about sponsorship,’” Self recalled. “We have a platform that could generate a couple million dollars for you guys in business-to-business relationships. They took that really seriously and invited us in for a meeting.”

That meeting led to a sponsorship deal for Self to compete in the ARCA finale that season at Kansas. Driving for MDM Motorsports, Self finished third in his return to racing.

“I think we kind of knocked it out of the park that weekend,” Self said. “We put in what I felt was a really solid showing for Sinclair on and off the race track.

“That kind of kick-started that sponsorship agreement going forward.”

Since then Self’s driving career has continued to grow. He ran all but one of the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West races in 2017, winning two races while driving for Bob Bruncati. He also was back in the ARCA Menards Series with sponsorship from Sinclair, running six races and winning the season finale at Kansas Speedway.

He upped the ante last year, running 10 ARCA events and winning twice, including a marquee victory in the opener at Daytona Int’l Speedway.

This season, Self and Sinclair are all-in, teaming with Venturini Motorsports to chase the ARCA Menards Series championship. After a rough outing in the opener at Daytona, Self scored his fourth ARCA victory at Florida’s Five Flags Speedway in March.

With all these good things going on, you’d think he’d be chomping at the bit to move up the ladder. Not Self.

“I’m really proud of every opportunity I get to race because of what I’ve done with Sinclair,” Self said. “Because of what I’ve done with them, I think my long-term goal is to race. Selfishly, that’s what I want to do. It’s what I have fun doing.

“More specifically, my long-term goal is to continue building a program that is beneficial to them and continue being the guy who has brought this oil and petroleum company into auto racing and successfully built a sponsorship.

“If I can do that, then my realistic goal may be outside of a race car. My realistic goal may be working for Sinclair or maybe working in sports marketing.”

Even if he never makes it to the upper levels of NASCAR, it appears Self is already comfortable with his place in the sport and what he’s accomplished.

You can’t fault him for that.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – While Brad Keselowski was celebrating in victory lane Saturday night at Kansas Speedway, Clint Bowyer was fuming on pit road after a late clash with Erik Jones in the Digital Ally 400.

Bowyer had a big run coming to the white flag during an overtime restart at the 1.5-mile oval, but found Jones’ No. 20 Toyota Camry in the way of his No. 14 Ford Mustang as he tried to make a move for third.

The Kansas native, who had pitted for fresh tires before the final restart and was clawing forward from eighth, looked to the bottom on the frontstretch as Jones sliced down two lanes to throw the block.

When Bowyer went back up the track, Jones went with him, further stymieing the Stewart-Haas Racing driver.

Bowyer gave a final shot to the rear bumper of the Toyota in question, before falling back due to a loss of momentum and ending up fifth, while Jones crossed third at the checkered flag.

From the moment he climbed out of his race car on pit road, Bowyer had no shortage of frustration to aim at Jones for his actions on the final lap.

“What are you going to do? Turn him right in front of the field and hurt him?” quipped Bowyer. “He put me in a bad situation. I lifted for him, and it cost me three spots right there. We should’ve finished second, and I think everybody knows that. That was dumb on his part. I guess that’s what he wants is to just go down and wreck in front of the field. If you’re going to run like that, you just don’t move up.

“I should’ve just wrecked him, I guess. That pisses me off,” Bowyer added. “It was a struggle; it wasn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be at home. We were fast yesterday in practice and qualifying. This was just a chaotic evening.”

Unsurprisingly, Jones had a different view of the late battle between himself and Bowyer afterward.

“I think it was just racing,” noted Jones. “We were racing hard, and this package really kind of leads into a lot of blocking and protecting your position. We’re taking the white flag; I’m not going to give up a lane to give up two, three or four spots if he would’ve gotten to the inside. Besides that, we had a car that could’ve won. We just got in the wrong spot at the end of the race and weren’t able to capitalize on it.

“We’ll keep moving forward. It’s been two good weeks,” Jones continued. “This the best car we’ve had since Texas and it’s just nice to be up in contention and have a shot.”

However, Jones admitted he understood Bowyer’s frustration after the race, as well.

“I’d be mad if I was him, but it’s just racing,” said Jones. “I’ve been blocked a lot, especially with this package … and I haven’t done a lot of blocking. You have to get aggressive and fight for every position.

“That’s all I was doing at the end of the race.”