PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- Commissioner Rob Manfred warned Grapefruit League managers Sunday night against acts of vigilante justice -- pitchers targeting the Houston Astros with beanballs because of their illicit sign-stealing -- and Manfred was expected to impart the same message to Cactus League managers Tuesday night.

But Manfred's effort on behalf of the Astros is already generating frustration in some corners of the industry.

"The Astros win again," said one evaluator.

As the anger at the Houston players continues to boil among other teams and players, pitchers like the Cleveland Indians' Mike Clevinger and the Los Angeles Dodgers' Ross Stripling have hinted as the possibility of throwing at Astros hitters. Boston's Chris Sale and the Dodgers' Alex Wood are among those veterans who have said they expect opponents to police the game on the field, to some degree.

Last weekend, new Astros manager Dusty Baker responded, saying, "I'm depending on the league to try to put a stop to this seemingly premeditated retaliation that I'm hearing about. And in most instances in life, you get kind of reprimanded when you have premeditated anything. I'm just hoping that the league puts a stop to this before somebody gets hurt."

Manfred acknowledged the concern and said he intended to speak to managers about the possibility, which he did Sunday.

A concern among the other teams, however, is that by putting opponents on notice in this way, Manfred runs the risk of pushing umpires into overreaction -- misreading intent of pitchers who simply miss their targets and hit Houston hitters accidentally, rather than throwing at them on purpose.

"If the Astros hitters know they're going to be protected and that the umpires will be throwing out pitchers [aggressively], they'll have the same advantage they had before -- they'll know what's coming," said a staffer. "If the pitchers can't pitch inside against the Astros, that'll work to their advantage."

Under current rules, umpires will issue warnings following pitches they deem suspect, sometimes drawing anger from one or both managers because of the concern that other pitchers in the game will be more reluctant to pitch inside.

The fear among at least some teams about Manfred's early action on behalf of the Astros is that it will at least make pitching inside more problematic for opponents, and perhaps lead to unjust ejections.

As one official noted: No other set of hitters other than the Astros will operate with that kind of preemptive advocacy.

"And that's just not right," he said.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Chris Davis was so despondent last September about his prolonged woes, the slumping slugger considered drastic action. He thought about walking away from the Baltimore Orioles, the game of baseball and a rich contract.

A two-time major league home run champion with a $161 million, seven-year deal, Davis has struggled mightily the last two seasons.

In 2018, he hit just .168 -- the lowest among all qualified major league batters -- with 16 home runs and 49 RBI, along with 192 strikeouts in 128 games.

Last year wasn't much better. Davis hit only .179 with 12 homers and 36 RBIs in 105 games. He also began the season hitless in his first 33 at-bats, extended an overall that reached 0 for 54.

Those sad stats were a long way from the 53 home runs he hit in 2013 and the 47 more he launched in 2015. That last bunch of longballs convinced the Orioles to hand him the biggest contract in team history, a seven-year pact at $23 million per season.

His overall totals in the first four years of the contract: a .192 batting average with only 92 homers and 230 RBI and a .679 OPS. Plus a whopping 745 strikeouts, more than one-third of his plate appearances.

After his numbers fell so hard, Davis acknowledged he had contemplated retirement.

"I'd be lying if I told you that wasn't at least talked about towards the end of the season last year and this offseason," Davis said. "I know what I'm capable of. I know what I expect of myself and I don't want to continue to just struggle and be a below-average, well-below-average producer at the plate."

Davis, who will be 34 on March 17, decided to return to the Orioles. He's added 25 pounds of muscle with hope that it will help bring back his lost power.

"I was really, really thin at the end of the season," Davis said. "I think it was a combination of just physical and mental stress and I just got back to kind of some of the basics. I wanted to get my weight back up, get my strength back up, and not focus so much this offseason on trying to stay lean, but really trying to get as strong as I could. Feel a little bit more physical, physically strong, physically fit. And felt like I did what I wanted to do."

But there's pressure on Davis. Including deferred money, Baltimore still owes him $93 million, and he says he wants to earn that money.

"I don't think that's fair to these guys," Davis said. "And I don't think, honestly, it's fair to our fans, or to anybody that's associated with Baltimore. But I still think that there is something left in the tank and I think that that's really a conversation that we're going to have to have at the end of this season."

"I have three years left after really two just grinding years, but I still think that there's some time to kind of right the ship. So that's a conversation I'll have to have again at the end of the season."

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde says he likes what he's seen from Davis so far.

"The ball really came off his bat," Hyde said after Davis' first batting practice on Monday. "I talked to him quite a bit in the offseason. He worked really hard in the gym, and in the weight room."

Davis conferred with his wife, Jill, and he's ready for another attempt to equal those eye-popping numbers of the past.

"The only reason I would walk away, or would have walked away at the end of the season last year is if I physically felt like I couldn't do it anymore, and that's not the case," Davis said.

NOTES:

RHP Hunter Harvey and INF/OF Trey Mancini, who had been sidelined by illness were cleared to return to the field, Hyde said.

Twenty years ago, when the Cincinnati Reds were trying to trade for Ken Griffey Jr., it wasn't as though they had discovered a toolsy phenom playing semipro ball in a sugarcane field. Griffey was probably the most famous, most popular and arguably best baseball player in the world. He had just been voted, by his peers, the Player of the Decade. He had just won the Gold Glove and the Silver Slugger award -- which pretty much covers it all -- for the fourth year in a row. His dad was the Reds' hitting instructor.

"You don't scout Ken Griffey Jr.," says Jim Bowden, who was the Reds' general manager at the time. "You just look and say, 'Oh, there's a Hall of Fame player.' So when you're making a trade for Griffey -- I never looked at a scouting report. I never needed to."

And yet, the scouting reports for Ken Griffey Jr. were written. As trade talks heated up and Bowden prepared for the winter meetings, the Reds' front office produced three new reports on Griffey, to go along with the two that had been filed by scouts at the end of the regular season, and the dozen or so that had been written, at a rate of a couple per year, since Griffey had become a perennial 40-homers-and-a-Gold-Glove MVP candidate. The Ringer's Ben Lindbergh, who acquired thousands of Reds scouting reports from that era, revealed some of what those scouting reports said: Reds scouts gave him elite grades for his power and defense, plus very strong grades for his hitting, arm and baserunning. Obviously!

Which is all to say that there are, out there, scouting reports on the recently traded Mookie Betts, the most obviously great ballplayer this side of Mike Trout (and peak Ken Griffey Jr.). There are scouting reports on Francisco Lindor, on Nolan Arenado, and on Kris Bryant -- all of whom are reportedly available in a trade right this minute if a GM wants them bad enough. Some of these scouting reports are regular, run-of-the-mill reports, with descriptions of his body type and swing plane: data points to track the player's career progression in a clinical, check-every-box sort of way. Others are probably best seen as attempts to persuade: persuade the GM, or persuade somebody above the GM to approve and fund the trade.

So put yourself in the scout's shoes: You've got to file a report on a player everybody knows everything about. Presumably, you want it to matter, and that's not an easy thing to accomplish. One GM who recently acquired a superstar hitter says he had multiple reports on the player, and, he says wryly, "They all thought he was pretty good. ... I can't say I remember poring over the details of those reports."

So what would a useful scouting report for these superstars do?

We can take some cues from the old Griffey reports, particularly the ones that came during the trade talks, when (according to just-after-the-facts reporting from Tom Verducci) the Reds' front office was engaged in internal debate about whether to acquire him. Bowden -- who had been calling the Mariners "three or four times a year" inquiring about Griffey since he had been hired in 1992 -- was in aggressive pursuit, but according to Verducci he had to convince the Mariners and his bosses in the C-suite. They were less sure, and at least twice ordered Bowden off the chase. It was around this time that the tone of the reports shifted: The annual reports had been fairly straightforward, sometimes veering toward gushing but mostly bland. There are abbreviations and technical terms.

The reports that were produced during trade talks were more hyperbolic, more personal. There were exclamation points ("If you can acquire him, go get him!") and clauses in all capital letters ("IS THE MICHAEL JORDAN OF BASEBALL"), and appeals to his place in baseball history and the broader culture. The nice thing about doing a scouting report on a known entity is that it frees you. The truth is already known. The report, then, can focus on the essence of the player. It's not so much about describing him as putting him on the right scale.

If we were writing reports for the three superstars on the trade market right now, we'd write something like:

Francisco Lindor

The best all-around shortstop since Alex Rodriguez and one of the 40 best players in history through age 25 -- and 80% of those guys went on to make the Hall of Fame. His first five full seasons were as good as Derek Jeter's, and he was a year younger than Jeter when he became a full-timer. When he dives for a ball, he's up faster than any shortstop in baseball -- mousetrap levels of spring. When he goes to his left, looks like he's running downhill, and can spin and throw as accurately as most shortstops could throw and then spin. Nobody in baseball's highlight reel looks more like it was spliced together from two different stars: A power hitter launching 35-degree bombs into the second deck, interspersed with a diving defender ranging impossibly to his left and glove-flipping feeds to his second baseman. He hit the ball as hard (by exit velocity) as Ronald Acuna Jr. and Pete Alonso last year. He's going to make the Hall of Fame, and he's simultaneously going to keep Andrelton Simmons out of it, by heisting Gold Glove Awards that would otherwise have been directly deposited into Simmons' account.

History will remember all that, but not just that. In a few decades, it'll be clearer that, late this decade, the era switched over from that era to this era. Before Lindor, Major League Baseball had been in a 25-year rut of players not being allowed to look like they were having much fun. The quirks, passions and extravagances of the 1980s were all suppressed -- even Griffey was playing it straight after his first few years -- and players were expected to maintain a scowl and chip on their shoulder. And then came 2016, when Lindor and Javy Baez were in the World Series, and it was like when Elsa realized that love was the key to controlling her magic. Lindor smiled constantly, and winter began to thaw. Lindor was young and stress-free and sometimes wearing a fedora, and for the first time in years baseball had a giddy superstar on its biggest stage. His nickname is Mr. Smile. That's going to be on a Hall of Fame plaque someday: Mr. Smile.

Smiling, you know, is contagious. In 2003, German researchers at the University of Tübingen put subjects into an fMRI machine, showed them a facial expression, and told them to make either the same facial expression or the opposite one. When the subjects were mimicking the expression they saw, the emotional part of the brain was in action. When they were making the opposite expression, the inhibitory part of the brain was in action, resisting. I'm a scout, not a neuroscientist, but as I understand it the brain wants to mimic the emotions that it sees. Boss: You need to smile more, in my opinion. I do too. We need to smile around each other, and then we'll both smile more. I smile when I watch Francisco Lindor play, and not just because of the glove-flip feeds to the second baseman. He's telling a different story than the serious players out there, and I respond to it. It is, of course, important that we give our fans a winning product, and Lindor helps with that too, but we want to give them something bigger: a fun day at the park, a happy feeling after watching a game on TV, a sense that we're rooting for the good guys out here.

If every player in baseball were exactly as good as every other player in baseball, Lindor would be the first player I'd take to start a franchise.

Nolan Arenado

Every other third baseman is a small-town cop driving around hoping to be there when a bad driver runs a red light. Arenado is the red-light camera, catching all of it, unthwartable. He's the computer in the highest level of Pong, with invincible AI-level anticipation. He throws harder from his knees than some left fielders throw from a crow hop. His barehand is impervious to spin. He's got a nifty, underrated move when he has to stray far to his right: Instead of planting and throwing over his shoulder, or spinning and jump throwing in the first baseman's vicinity, he cuts a little bit toward home plate, takes a step or two in and throws across his body, giving himself a good clean look at his target before he has to unload. That's one of the amazing things about Arenado's defense: When he makes an incredible stop -- and he does about once per game, or sometimes five times -- he never rushes the play. He usually has a moment, and he takes advantage of that moment to settle, square up and avoid turning an acrobatic stop into a two-base error with a wild throw. It also works almost as a taunt to the defeated hitter, one last split second that he has to run hard, despite Arenado having already sucked all the hope out of the play. Check this play out. It's got a bit of all of that, and preserved a no-hitter.

Scholars estimate that as many as eight of the best highlights in baseball since 2014 are from Arenado. Nobody chews gum harder than this guy.

But you know all that, and you also know that he's an RBI monster, and you mostly ignore the RBIs because it's 2020 and we read Harvard Business Review. Boss: Don't just ignore the RBIs. Of course, they're an overrated stat and in Arenado's case they're partly a Coors Field creation. But Arenado, a good hitter overall, has been one of the best in history with runners on base and/or in scoring position. Only nine players in the past century have raised their performance with runners on more than Arenado, and only one has raised his performance more with runners in scoring position. Arenado is a .274/.323/.503 hitter with the bases empty -- essentially Matt Chapman's line, though boosted by his ballpark. Put a runner on second or third and he has hit .332/.411/.630. There probably aren't more than five hitters in baseball I'd rather have up with a couple of runners on, and we don't have any of those five in our lineup. (No, I'm not criticizing you. You've done a fine job. I'm just saying.) His RBI percentage -- the rate of baserunners he has driven in -- has been among the NL's 10 best in each of the past five years. Is that a little bit of a junk stat? Probably! But you already know all the facts about Nolan Arenado, perennial MVP candidate, future Hall of Famer, etc. I'm giving you something better than facts: superstitious speculation. The man is clutch. The junk stats prove it.

Kris Bryant

We have a couple dozen scouts, and this year we're going to send them into every corner of this nation and most corners of a dozen others looking for good baseball players. Our scouts are going to drive tens of thousands of miles each, go to hundreds of games, file thousands of reports on players who will mostly fail to reach Double-A, all in search of the small handful who could turn into valuable major leaguers. These few are so rare and so valuable that dozens of coaches will spend hundreds -- thousands? -- of hours working with them to try to cultivate their special gifts. We will stare at these few constantly, filming their every at-bat, collecting terabytes of data and trying within this matrix of information to find the faint heartbeat of a future career. If any of these players make it to the majors and contribute, it's no exaggeration to say that hundreds of our employees -- coaches, scouts, strength trainers, support staff, teammates and front-office executives -- will have needed to do their jobs correctly.

But, boss, check it out: I have a shortcut. It's Kris Bryant. Literally the Kris Bryant. One of the best college hitters in history, one of the best minor leaguers in history, a Rookie of the Year and an MVP and the best player on a recent World Series champion. Other people already did all the work for us. They found him, they cultivated him, they got him here. If we get him, we quite possibly get a future Hall of Famer to invite to future old timers' games, a uniform number to retire someday, and a guy who had a 4.78 high school GPA. (For our book club!) I just checked his stats and his projections, and he's still really good.

Of course, you know all that. You know, too, that he hasn't been quite as good lately as he was in his first three seasons. He had a shoulder injury that sapped his power for at least one season and maybe two. His defense is, predictably, getting worse as he ages and slows. He's an extreme fly ball hitter who might be more dependent on the juiced ball than most stars, and who really knows whether the juiced ball will show up again this season or not? All of that. But look at our third baseman, and look at Bryant. Bryant is better. My job here is just to point that out. There's an easy way of doing things and a hard way, and you need to ask yourself whether we're in the easy way business or the hard way business. Answering that question is above my paygrade.

(Speaking of which: Let's talk about my raise.)

Jessica Whittington shares her experience of the Caribbean island’s growing marathon weekend

The Run Barbados Marathon Weekend has enjoyed a boom in participation levels over the past couple of years, with runners from around the world travelling to the Caribbean island for an active holiday.

It’s easy to understand why. Particularly at this time of year in a cold and wet UK, when many will be planning their race calendars for the year ahead, an escape to the Caribbean climate in December sounds incredibly appealing.

Having started out as a 10km and marathon created by locals Sir Austin Sealy and Carl Bayley in 1983, the annual event – which took place for the 37th time from December 6-8 – has evolved into a three-day festival with a half-marathon, 5km, fun mile and 5km walk also on offer.

A total of 2765 participants from 23 countries were involved in the latest edition and I was among them, as one of 154 entries from the UK to have travelled to the idyllic island which is just 166 square miles in size. It can take just three hours to drive around the whole island, which left me wondering how long it might take to run it …

Run Barbados

My first experience of the Run Barbados Marathon Weekend came in 2017. Since then the event has grown and some changes have been made, such as moving the fun mile to start and finish on the famous Bay Street Esplanade, located along Barbados’ west coast and just south of the capital city of Bridgetown.

This is also the start and finish area for all the other events, with the Signia Globe Fun Mile taking place on the Friday evening before the Cave Shepherd VISA Credit Card 5K, Colombian Emeralds International 10K and Ganzee 5k Walk on the Saturday afternoon and then the Cave Shepherd & Co. Marathon and Fortress Half Marathon on the Sunday morning.

Bridgetown and its Garrison is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the routes take runners under the Independence Arch, over the Chamberlain Bridge and through the city. The marathon and half-marathon course continues along the west coast with views out to Carlisle Bay once the sun is up, with those races starting at 5am to take advantage of slightly cooler conditions. The marathon is two laps of the half-marathon route on partially-closed roads.

The marathon and half-marathon are the final events of the busy Run Barbados Marathon Weekend programme. Starting at 5am local time, the temperature is a cooler 26C and there’s a gentle breeze on the Bridgetown esplanade @RunFunBarbados @Barbados pic.twitter.com/sOmJfiQuSR

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) December 8, 2019

The event’s impressive roll of honour includes Australia’s 1983 world marathon champion Rob de Castella, who claimed the first Run Barbados men’s 10km title, while Britain’s 1982 London Marathon winner Hugh Jones won the marathon six times.

At the 2019 edition, leading names included GB international Sarah Inglis and Canada’s Yves Sikubwabo.

One of the big draws of Run Barbados is that it offers multiple events over three days and organisers have created ‘challenge medals’ to encourage runners to take on a range of races.

Inglis was among the ‘silver challenge’ runners as she competed in the mile, 10km and half-marathon, winning the women’s mile in 5:01 and completing a half-marathon hat- trick in 82:16, as well as finishing second behind Canada’s Natasha Wodak in the 10km in 36:20.

Other challenge medals on offer are the ‘bronze’ for those running the mile, 5km and half-marathon and ‘gold’ for those taking on the mile, 10km and marathon.

“We can offer people three days of fun,” says event director Zary Evelyn. “You can come here and make it a part of your holiday. There’s something for everybody.”

In 2019 the UK contingent was the third-largest at Run Barbados after local Barbadians and their Caribbean neighbours from Trinidad. The 2018 edition was the biggest yet, with entries also exceeding 2700.

Evelyn says the people of Barbados have embraced the event.

“They know it is aimed at tourism so that, for it to be sustainable, tourists have to come here for it,” he explains.

“There is an avid running crowd here, especially for shorter distances like 5km and 10km.”

Win a return trip

If running in beautiful Barbados wasn’t reward enough, extra appeal comes in the form of the event’s prize pot and offer of a return trip for winners.

Sarah Inglis is based in Canada and attends the race weekend as part of the Canada Running Series community but, since visiting the island for the first time in 2017, she has actually won each of her return trips.

“Our prize money is the biggest in the Caribbean. It’s just over $25,000 USD,” explains Evelyn. “We have prizes for the top locals as well as international runners.”

Marathon prize money in Barbados dollars includes Bds$4,000 each (around £1500) for the winners plus return airfare and hotel for the following year’s event, while for the half-marathon and 10km the top prizes are Bds$2,000 and Bds$1,000 each respectively and a return trip.

“It’s a huge incentive,” says Inglis, who claimed joint half-marathon victory in 2017 before winning in 2018 and 2019. “Every year I hope to pull it off and win to guarantee the trip back the following year.

“There’s probably no race like this anywhere in the world where you can finish and the beach is right behind you. It’s really beautiful to race here.

“You can put in a nice week of training, some easy runs, a couple of races and then reset coming into Christmas and new year,” she adds.

“You come and you race hard but you also have a really good time. You can also enjoy some rum punches after the race!”

Interview with @SarahInglis5 as she ends a successful year in style by completing a @RunFunBarbados half-marathon hat-trick in 82:16. It comes after she won Friday evening’s mile and was second in Saturday’s 10km @Barbados @scotathletics pic.twitter.com/sQZCNF8xYc

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) December 8, 2019

Race weekend

My Run Barbados experience started with picking up my race numbers and T-shirts for the mile and 5km. This was quick, easy and friendly, and the location of race HQ at the Courtyard by Marriott in Bridgetown was close to where I was staying at the Coconut Court Beach Hotel, as well as the race start and finish area, which was just a 20-minute walk away.

Friday evening’s mile offers a great festival feel, with music, dancing and fancy dress. With the 5km and 10km races taking place the following afternoon, conditions are hot, but there are a number of water stations and I adjusted my pace accordingly as I wound my way through Bridgetown’s streets.

Blogger and ASICS FrontRunner Rebecca Burns was among those taking on the half-marathon and told me the 5am start was welcomed to escape the heat of the day. “The timing equates to 9am GMT which ideally fitted with my somewhat jetlagged body clock,” she says.

“The race consisted of an out and back route which between 6-15km was undulating, so be prepared for hills! Some areas of the route were quiet so it’s a mental challenge as much as a physical one,” she adds.

“The organisers provided frequent water stations also stocked with bananas and there were marshals in abundance, with many on the course on bikes. There were even locals offering tequila shots and rum punch should you feel inclined! A true taste of Caribbean hospitality.”

Explore Barbados

The Run Barbados slogan is ‘Come for the run, stay for the fun!’ and there are so many other things to see and do on the island while you are visiting.

Travel tips

Former Olympic and world champion hopes to see his British mark overtaken

Linford Christie says he hopes his UK 100m record of 9.87 is broken soon because he is keen to see British sprinting move up to the next level.

The Olympic, world, European and Commonwealth 100m gold medallist ran that record time when winning his world title in 1993 and since then Zharnel Hughes and James Dasaolu have come closest with 9.91 in 2018 and 2013 respectively, while Reece Prescod ran 9.94, also in 2018.

Looking ahead to Olympic year, Christie told AW: “It’s another year for someone to try and break my 9.87 which I’m hoping (happens), because that means we’ve progressed a lot.

“As far as sprinting is concerned, we want to try and be up there with the Americans. That’s what I’m looking for, I’m trying to look for the next guy who is going to come up there and help to keep British sprinting on the map.”

Asked whether there are any athletes in particular he thinks will threaten the record, he laughed and replied: “I dare not say! I think we have got a good crop of guys out there. Hopefully, as long as they are all fit and healthy, then everything is possible.”

This Olympic year is set to be exciting, he added, with athletes battling to be the global No.1 following the retirement of Jamaican sprint star Usain Bolt.

Christie was speaking at The National Running Show in Birmingham, where he reflected on his career in an interview with fellow British sprinter Iwan Thomas on the ‘inspiration stage’.

A question from the crowd asked if Christie believes anyone will break Bolt’s world 100m record of 9.58. The 59-year-old laughed and said: “He’s lucky I’m not running now!

“I think the whole idea of the athletics fraternity now is that you’re training because you want to better 9.58. Everybody is training with that in mind.”

He added: “It’s a possibility. Within the next 10 years I think someone will come and run 9.5, or quicker.”

Christie, who now coaches at Brunel University, was speaking on the first day of the popular running show, which saw thousands head to Birmingham’s NEC to listen to an extensive list of talks as well as receive training advice and visit the hundreds of exhibition stands.

CHANDLER, Ariz. – Last season wasn’t up to the usual impressive standards from Antron Brown, but you won’t find an ounce of discouragement from the three-time NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series world champion.

Coming off his first winless season of his career in the Top Fuel ranks, Brown, a 66-time event winner, is welcoming the journey to once again get back on top.

He’s back with former crew chief Brian Corradi, a tandem that led to massive success in previous years, and Brown is eyeing this season as a return to form in his 11,000-horsepower Matco Tools/Global Electronic Technology/Toyota dragster. The veteran standout knows what a quick start could mean for the year, leaving him determined and focused heading into this weekend’s 36th annual NHRA Arizona Nationals at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park.

“We feel good right now, even though we know we’ve still got our work cut out for us getting the car where we want it,” Brown said. “It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s going to take laps and we know that. But the journey is the meaningful part. We know nothing comes free and you have to put the work in. You can see the mountain in front of you. Are you going to let it eat you up or are you going to conquer it? That’s one of the parts I enjoy most and you go through it as a team. For us, it’s not a question of if we can do it. We’ve been there before.”

Billy Torrence (Top Fuel), Matt Hagan (Funny Car) and Jeg Coughlin (Pro Stock) were last year’s winners of the NHRA Arizona Nationals. The duel in the desert marks the second of 24 races during an NHRA season Brown ultimately hopes is better than his last two campaigns.

Prior to 2019, Brown won one race in 2018, finishing sixth in points. He dropped to ninth a year ago, an uncharacteristic fall for a star who won back-to-back Top Fuel world championships in 2015 and 2016. Brown could never find his footing a year ago, prompting the move to reunite with Corradi.

It’s a proven team, but there’s still an adjustment process as everyone comes together. The team was solid in testing, but lost in the first round in Pomona to start the year. Brown, though, wasn’t banking on instant success, knowing the team is going to continue to put in the work.

“We just have to be poised and confident in the process,” Brown said. “We all have to be in it together. There’s pressure for all of us and we all share it. If you take it and put it all on your own shoulders, that’s when you start messing up. That’s where experience pays off and that’s one of the biggest things with this team and our backgrounds.”

It’s clearly a winning background, as Brown’s 50 Top Fuel victories are fourth most in class history. He’ll look to add to that in Phoenix, where he has three career wins. Standing in his way is an array of talent, including Pomona winner Doug Kalitta, back-to-back world champ Steve Torrence, 2017 world champ Brittany Force, Shawn Langdon, Austin Prock, who was last year’s top rookie, Leah Pruett, Terry McMillen and Clay Millican. But a strong performance in Phoenix could be just the boost the team needs early in the season.

“If you get off to a good start, you can start building momentum,” Brown said. “If you have good races, that means you’re making eight laps and you’re going to learn more to grow and be better. If you’re making less runs, that’s less data you’re getting. We just have to continue to stay the course and keep raising our level of performance. We’ve all worked together in the past and we know we can communicate with each other, so that’s big.”

INDIANAPOLIS — Colin Mullan will again co-drive the No. 36 Window World-MI Windows and Doors Sprint X McLaren along with Jarett Andretti during the upcoming Pirelli GT4 America season.

The returning Mullan raced alongside Andretti during four Pirelli GT4 America Sprint X events in 2019.

“It was great to share so many podiums with Colin last season,” Andretti said. “For a driver of his age, I think his experience and record speaks for itself. We’re happy to have him back and I look forward to winning more with him.”

Mullan shared Andretti’s excitement.

“I’m very excited to be joining Andretti Autosport and Jarett Andretti for the 2020 GT4 America Sprint X championship,” Mullan said. “Jarett and I meshed very well as co-drivers during my partial season with the team last year. The whole organization has been a pleasure to work with, and I was welcomed into their family immediately. It’s been amazing to work with both McLaren and a team that carries such a pedigree in racing, and I’m looking forward to continuing that relationship into the future. I have no doubt that we’ll be a serious contender for podiums and race wins this year.”

The Pirelli GT4 America Sprint X series features a 60-minute race with a halfway pit stop and driver change.  Mullan and Andretti will each drive for 30-minute intervals. The season kicks off on March 7 at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.