On a day that challenged the rest of the leaders, Zach Johnson dominated the third round of the Kaulig Companies Championship on Saturday to take a four-stroke lead into the final round at Akron, Ohio.

Johnson, who entered the day a stroke back of the lead, shot 7-under-par 63 to reach 13-under 197. That strong, bogey-free performance began at the onset, with birdies on four of the first five holes to kick off a 5-under front nine at Firestone Country Club.

“Yeah, it was really solid. I don’t know if it was easy, but it was not difficult,” Johnson said after his round. “Today was a pin high day, it was crazy. And a good thing. If you needed to be short, you needed to be long, certain hole placements for the most part, I did that. The front nine was as solid of nine holes as I’ve played in I couldn’t tell you how long.”

The two-time PGA major winner only became eligible for PGA Tour Champions events in February. He’s already won two Champions events this year and would move up from third to second in the Charles Schwab Cup standings should he hold on to win Sunday.

While he hasn’t won a PGA Tour event since 2015, Johnson finished T9 at last week’s John Deere Classic and feels he’s been in strong form for quite awhile now.

“I feel like I’ve been in a pretty good trajectory even prior to (John Deere) if I’m going to be blunt,” Johnson said. ” … Deere was solid. Fortunately the momentum’s kind of carried me into this week.”

While Johnson finished with seven birdies and no bogeys Saturday, he didn’t have the best round of the day. That belonged to Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez, who shot 8 under to sit alone in second place at 9 under for the tournament.

Jimenez, who won this event last year in a playoff against New Zealand’s Steven Alker, also birdied his first two holes and finished with four birdies on each nine of his bogey-free round.

“I shoot my age today, 62. Every time you can shoot your age is great,” Jimenez said. ” … I played very solid. I hit it very good, especially my irons was very nice today to the flags all day.”

Round 2 leader Cameron Percy of Australia (70) shot even-par and sits six strokes back of Johnson in solo third place at 7 under. He’s followed by Tag Ridings and Northern Ireland’s Darren Clarke, who both shot 68 and are tied for fourth at 6 under.

–Field Level Media

HAMPTON, Ga. — Ryan Blaney claimed his second pole position of the season Saturday evening at Atlanta’s fast high-banked EchoPark Speedway — leading a Team Penske Ford front row sweep for Sunday night’s Quaker State 400 (7 p.m. ET, TNT, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Blaney’s No. 12 Team Penske Ford turned in a lap of 179.912 mph around the 1.5-mile track, besting his teammate Joey Logano’s No. 22 Ford by a slight .016-second in Busch Light Pole Qualifying.

It’s the 32-year old Blaney’s 14th career pole and marks the first front-row Penske sweep this year. All three Penske’s advanced to Saturday’s 10-car second round after dominating the top of the speed charts in round one. Austin Cindric will roll off eighth in the No. 2 Penske Ford.

The typically low-key Blaney was thrilled for the result, crediting his team for the hard work. However, the 2023 series champion was quick to remind at a high-speed, drafting track such as Atlanta, he was confident starting up front doesn’t automatically translate into a trip to Victory Lane.

Toyota, which is enjoying a dominant season in wins, failed to place a single car into the final round of qualifying.

NASCAR Cup Series championship leader Denny Hamlin will roll off 28th in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick, who trails Hamlin by 44 points in the standings, will start 31st in the No. 45 Toyota. A five-time race winner this year, Reddick won at Atlanta this February.

Gibbs drivers Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell will start 23rd and 32nd. And Reddick’s 23XI teammates Bubba Wallace and Riley Herbst are 23rd and 29th on the grid.

“I feel like we’ve seen that,” Blaney said of the Toyotas qualifying effort. “They don’t really qualify great at these speedways, just the build of their race car. So usually that means they can probably be aggressive in the draft and get in the middle and get to the top and things like that. I’m sure we’re going to see them up there.

“If you look at the spring race here and Toyotas were really, really good when it came race time. Hopefully, our balance in the race is good enough to be able to either maintain the lead or if we get shuffled back to be able to go forward. You really don’t know that until the race starts.”

The Chevrolets of Kyle Larson (No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports) and Austin Dillon (No. 3 Richard Childress Racing ) make up row two.

Daniel Suarez will start fifth with the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets of Alex Bowman and defending race winner Chase Elliott, Cindric, Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain and Brad Keselowski owner-driver of the No. 6 Roush Fenway Keselowski Ford, rounding out the top 10.

The front row start is especially significant for the three-time series champion Logano, who is enduring one of the most challenging seasons of his Hall of Fame-bound career. He’s still not in the top 16 field that will ultimately settle the title in the 10-race Chase. Logano’s ranked 18th, 16 points behind 16th-place Erik Jones.

“The good news is the Hunt Brothers Pizza Mustang is fast and that speed you see in qualifying will usually show up in the race,” said Logano, a two-time Atlanta winner. “I’m proud to see the speed that’s there and the handling seemed fine in qualifying.

“I feel like our team can handle these speedways really well and you can remember what happened here last Fall (he wrecked after leading laps and winning the pole position), so there’s no guarantee you see the end of it.

“But,” he added with a smile, “The speed’s there and that’s half the battle, so we know we have that.”

–By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service. Special to Field Level Media

Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Justin Wrobleski was added to the National League All-Star team Saturday as a replacement for Cincinnati Reds right-hander Chase Burns.

Burns last pitched for the Reds on Wednesday against the Philadelphia Phillies. He said Saturday that he injured his right groin during the contest while covering home plate after a wild pitch.

When symptoms increased, he reported the injury to Reds manager Terry Francona on Friday. The decision was later reached to pull out of Tuesday’s All-Star Game at Philadelphia.

“It was a tough decision,” Burns told reporters on Saturday. “I am very thankful to be selected and stuff, but I kind of had a tough play at the plate against the Phillies and the groin kind of got tight. I think it’s just a mature decision to prioritize the second half of the season and not mess it up anymore.”

Wrobleski, 25, becomes the sixth Dodgers player on the NL roster, which will be managed by Los Angeles skipper Dave Roberts.

Wrobleski was tied for the NL lead in wins when All-Star Game rosters were announced earlier this week but still was not included on the squad. He said he was well aware of the roster numbers crunch but was still going to use the snub as motivation.

“I mean, you want to be an All-Star, and I felt like I did enough to kind of put myself in that conversation, if not be there,” Wrobleski said last week. “To not get the selection, yeah, it definitely adds some fuel to the fire for the rest of this year. Go out there every outing and prove that I’m worthy of that, and that I’m going to be one of those guys moving forward.”

Wrobleski is 10-2 with a 2.69 ERA over 16 appearances (15 starts) this season. He made an appearance in Game 7 of last October’s World Series, delivering 1 1/3 scoreless innings in relief while replacing Shohei Ohtani in the third inning as the Dodgers trailed the Toronto Blue Jays 3-0. Los Angeles rallied to win the title in 11 innings.

According to The Athletic and NBC Sports Philadelphia, Phillies right-hander Zack Wheeler was offered a spot on the NL roster on Friday but declined. Wheeler, 36, is 9-1 with a 2.28 ERA over 14 starts this season and is a three-time All-Star, including each of the previous two seasons.

Burns, 23, is 11-1 with a 2.54 ERA in 18 starts during his first full season in the major leagues.

The second overall selection in the 2024 draft has already reached 102 2/3 innings on the season. That is just shy of his combined 109 1/3 innings between the major leagues and minor leagues last season, which was his first on the field as a professional.

Francona was in full agreement with Burns’ reasoning for opting out of the game.

“I just think he’s trying to show some maturity and he understands that, like he told me, he knows where he’s at with his innings compared to last year and stuff. He was really thought out and conscientious about it,” Francona said.”

The Reds still will be represented at the All-Star Game by rookie infielder Sal Stewart.

–Field Level Media