Newgarden fastest in final practice

Josef Newgarden spent the final 2-hour practice for the Indianapolis 500 on Friday carving through a track full of cars. He’ll have to do the same thing when it counts on Sunday. The two-time defending Indy 500 winner, who will start in the last row as punishment for an illegally modified part found during qualifying, had the fastest lap of the 2-hour final practice on Carb Day at 225.687 mph. Teammate Will Power, who will also start at the back, was fifth while fellow Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin was just 27th on the chart. “We have the tools and the people to battle to the front,” Newgarden said, “which is what we plan to do.” McLaughlin, whose car did not have the offending part and escaped Team Penske punishments, will start 10th after wrecking his primary car in practice last Sunday. His fastest lap in the final session of practice was just 221.675 mph. “I know we have fast cars,” McLaughlin said. “Everyone feels that way, as well.” Two-time winner Takuma Sato had some kind of mechanical problem during practice, as did Rahal Letterman Lanigan teammate Graham Rahal.

Pirates GM says Skenes is staying

The Pirates are reeling, and just about everything is on the table for a last-place team that has already fired its manager and packed a half-decade’s worth of public-relations missteps into two months. Well, except for one thing: trading ace Paul Skenes. Asked on Thursday if flipping the reigning National League Rookie of the Year is a consideration for a club woefully lacking in impactful position-player prospects, general manager Ben Cherington gave an atypically brief response. “No, it’s not part of the conversation at all,” Cherington said flatly. The Pirates entered a four-game series against the NL Central rival Brewers already 11 games out of playoff position, thanks in large part to an offense that ranks last or next-to-last in nearly every major category: from runs, slugging percentage and OPS (all 30th) to home runs and batting average (both 29th). Skenes, who turns 23 next week, has been all-in on the Pirates since being called up a year ago. He’s also under team control for the rest of the decade and won’t become arbitration-eligible until after 2026.

PWHL eyes expansion, Olympics

As impressive as the PWHL’s growth has been less than two years since its launch, with the league blowing past initial attendance and revenue projections, and already into its first phase of expansion, Stan Kasten, pictured, says you’ve seen nothing yet. The league’s advisory board member laid out an ambitious vision of the PWHL’s future during a phone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday. Kasten foresees further expansion — beyond the recent additions of Vancouver and Seattle to grow the PWHL to eight teams — within the next few years; the league capitalizing on the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics to broaden its reach internationally; and the prospect of turning a profit by 2031, when the league’s current CBA with its players expires. “By every measure, we’re ahead of where we thought we would be. And we never thought we were going to be this niche six-team league in the northeast of North America,” Kasten said. “Our manifest destiny is a lot more than six. It’s a lot more than eight. I don’t know how many,” he added. —Associated Press