ATLANTA (AP) — Austin Riley knocked in Ronald Acuña Jr. with a 10th inning single Sunday and the Atlanta Braves rallied late to beat the Guardians 4-3 and win a three-game series between the top two teams in the majors.
A.J. Minter (4-1) picked up the win by throwing a scoreless 10th inning.
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ATLANTA (AP) — Austin Riley knocked in Ronald Acuña Jr. with a 10th inning single Sunday and the Atlanta Braves rallied late to beat the Guardians 4-3 and win a three-game series between the top two teams in the majors.
Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuña Jr. (13) flies out in the first inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Cleveland Guardians' José Ramírez (11) and Brayan Rocchio (4) warm up before a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Cleveland Guardians pitcher Ben Lively (39) delivers in the first inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
in the xx inning of a baseball game, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Cleveland Guardians' Bo Naylor (23) celebrates scoring against the Atlanta Braves on an RBI-single by Andrés Giménez (0) in the second inning of a baseball game, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Atlanta Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia (11) holds the ball high after tagging out Cleveland Guardians' Tyler Freeman at second base in the fourth inning of a baseball game, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Atlanta Braves third baseman Austin Riley (27) hits a single against the Cleveland Guardians in the fourth inning of a baseball game, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Emmanuel Clase (1-0) took the loss.
The win was the 11th in the last 13 games by the Braves, who handed the Guardians their first loss in a road series in five tries.
The Guardians ran themselves out of the 10th inning. Stephen Kwan was picked off trying to steal third with one out, and José Ramírez ended the ending when he overran second trying to steal a base.
Riley was 2-for-4 with a walk and Ozzie Albies was 2-for-4 with an RBI.
The Braves tied the game 3-3 in the eighth on an RBI double by Albies and an RBI single by Matt Olson.
Braves starter Bryce Elder lasted 5 1/3 innings, giving up two runs on four hits with two strikeouts. After having no walks in his first start of the season, Elder struggled a bit with control, walking four, having a hit batsman and throwing two wild pitches. The last wild pitch allowed Brayan Rocchio to score from third with the Guardians’ second run in the fifth inning.
Elder was also hit on the right foot by a 95 mph comebacker from Andrés Giménez in the third inning. After a visit from the athletic trainer, Elder threw two warmup pitches and stayed in the game.
Guardians starter Ben Lively gave up one run in 4 1/3 innings with five strikeouts and two walks.
Rocchio was 2-for-3 with two steals and two runs scored and Giménez went 2-for-3 with an RBI and a steal for the Guardians.
The Guardians were aggressive on the base paths. One day after pulling off a key double steal late in a 4-2 win, the Guardians stole three more bases Saturday, though they were also picked off twice and thrown out twice.
UP NEXT
Guardians: RHP Carlos Carrasco (1-2, 4.63) will face the Astros RHP Hunter Brown (0-4, 9.68) in Game 1 of a three-game series in Houston on Tuesday.
Braves: LHP Max Fried (2-0 4.97) will open a three-game series in Seattle against Mariners RHP Bryce Miller (3-2, 2.22) on Monday.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB
Atlanta Braves pitcher Bryce Elder delivers in the first inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuña Jr. (13) flies out in the first inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Cleveland Guardians' José Ramírez (11) and Brayan Rocchio (4) warm up before a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Cleveland Guardians pitcher Ben Lively (39) delivers in the first inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
in the xx inning of a baseball game, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Cleveland Guardians' Bo Naylor (23) celebrates scoring against the Atlanta Braves on an RBI-single by Andrés Giménez (0) in the second inning of a baseball game, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Atlanta Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia (11) holds the ball high after tagging out Cleveland Guardians' Tyler Freeman at second base in the fourth inning of a baseball game, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Atlanta Braves third baseman Austin Riley (27) hits a single against the Cleveland Guardians in the fourth inning of a baseball game, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen awaits a bruising round of questioning from the former president's lawyers on Tuesday after testimony that linked the celebrity client to all aspects of a hush money scheme that prosecutors say was aimed at stifling stories that threatened his 2016 campaign.
Trump, the first former U.S. president to go on trial, was being joined in the Manhattan courtroom Tuesday by an entourage of Republican supporters including House Speaker Mike Johnson, second in the line of succession to the president. Johnson was traveling with Trump in his motorcade along with North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida Reps. Byron Donalds and Cory Mills and his former GOP rival Vivek Ramaswamy. Burgum and Donalds are considered potential vice presidential contenders.
Their presence Tuesday as Cohen, the prosecution's star witness, returns to the stand is a not-so-subtle show of support meant not just for Trump but also for voters tuning in from home and for the jurors who are deciding Trump's fate.
On Monday, Cohen delivered matter-of-fact testimony that went to the heart of the former president’s trial.
“Everything required Mr. Trump’s sign-off,” Cohen said.
He placed Trump at the center of the hush money scheme, saying he had promised to reimburse money the lawyer had fronted for the payments and was constantly apprised of the behind-the-scenes efforts to bury stories feared to be harmful to the campaign.
“We need to stop this from getting out,” Cohen quoted Trump as telling him in reference to porn actor Stormy Daniels’ account of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. The then-candidate was especially anxious about how the story would affect his standing with female voters.
A similar episode occurred when Cohen alerted Trump that a Playboy model was alleging that she and Trump had an extramarital affair. “Make sure it doesn’t get released,” was Cohen’s message to Trump, the lawyer said. The woman, Karen McDougal, was paid $150,000 in an arrangement that was made after Trump received a “complete and total update on everything that transpired.”
“What I was doing, I was doing at the direction of and benefit of Mr. Trump,” Cohen testified.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and has denied both sexual encounters.
Cohen is by far the prosecution's most important witness, and though his testimony lacked the electricity that defined Daniels' turn on the stand, he nonetheless linked Trump directly to the payments and helped illuminate some of the drier evidence such as text messages and phone logs that jurors had already seen.
The testimony of a witness with such intimate knowledge of Trump’s activities could heighten the legal exposure of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee if jurors deem him sufficiently credible. But prosecutors’ reliance on a witness with such a checkered past — Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the payments — also carries sizable risks with a jury and could be a boon to Trump politically as he fundraises off his legal woes and paints the case as the product of a tainted criminal justice system.
The men, once so close that Cohen boasted that he would “take a bullet” for Trump, had no visible interaction inside the courtroom. The sedate atmosphere was a marked contrast from their last courtroom faceoff in October, when Trump walked out of the courtroom after his lawyer finished questioning Cohen during his civil fraud trial.
This time around, Trump sat at the defense table with his eyes closed for long stretches of testimony as Cohen recounted his decade-long career as a senior Trump Organization executive, doing work that by his own admission sometimes involved lying and bullying others on his boss's behalf.
Trump's lawyers will get their chance to begin questioning Cohen as early as Tuesday, where they're expected to attack his credibility — he was disbarred, went to prison and separately pleaded guilty to lying about a Moscow real estate project on Trump's behalf — and cast him as a vindictive, agenda-driven witness. The defense told jurors during opening statements that he’s an “admitted liar” with an “obsession to get President Trump.”
Prosecutors aim to blunt those attacks by acknowledging Cohen’s past crimes to jurors and by relying on other witnesses whose accounts, they hope, will buttress his testimony.
Jurors had previously heard from others about the tabloid industry practice of “catch-and-kill,” in which rights to a story are purchased so that it can then be quashed. But Cohen's testimony is crucial to prosecutors because of his direct communication with the then-candidate about embarrassing stories he was scrambling to suppress.
Cohen also matters because the reimbursements he received from a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels, which prosecutors say was meant to buy her silence in advance of the election, form the basis of 34 felony counts charging Trump with falsifying business records. Prosecutors say the reimbursements were logged, falsely, as legal expenses to conceal the payments’ true purpose.
To establish Trump's intimate familiarity with the payments, Cohen told jurors under questioning that Trump had promised to reimburse him. The two men even discussed with Allen Weisselberg, a former Trump Organization chief financial officer, how the reimbursements would be paid as legal services over monthly installments, Cohen testified.
He said Trump even sought to delay finalizing the Daniels transaction until after Election Day so he wouldn’t have to pay her.
“Because,” Cohen testified, “after the election it wouldn’t matter” to Trump.
Cohen also gave jurors an insider account of his negotiations with David Pecker, the then-publisher of the National Enquirer, who was such a close Trump ally that Pecker told Cohen his publication maintained a “file drawer or a locked drawer" where files related to Trump were kept. That effort took on added urgency following the October 2016 disclosure of an “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump was heard boasting about grabbing women sexually.
The Daniels payment was finalized several weeks after that revelation, but Monday's testimony also centered on a deal earlier that fall with McDougal.
To lay the foundation that the deals were done with Trump's endorsement, prosecutors elicited testimony from Cohen designed to show Trump as a hands-on manager. Acting on Trump's behalf, Cohen said, he sometimes lied and bullied others, including reporters.
“When he would task you with something, he would then say, ‘Keep me informed. Let me know what’s going on,’” Cohen testified. He said that was especially true “if there was a matter that was troubling to him.”
Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building in New York, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Cohen, former President Donald Trump’s fixer-turned-foe is returning to the witness stand for a bruising round of questioning from the former president’s lawyers. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building in New York, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Cohen, former President Donald Trump’s fixer-turned-foe is returning to the witness stand for a bruising round of questioning from the former president’s lawyers. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan criminal court in New York, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan criminal court in New York, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan criminal court in New York, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan criminal court in New York, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Former President Donald Trump sits in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Mark Peterson/New York Magazine via AP, Pool)
Former President Donald Trump and lawyer Todd Blanche return to his criminal trial after a short break at Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Sarah Yenesel/Pool Photo via AP)
FILE - Michael Cohen, former attorney to Donald Trump, leaves the District Attorney's office in New York, March 13, 2023. Cohen is prosecutors' most central witness in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial. But Trump's fixer-turned-foe is also as challenging a star witness as they come. The now-disbarred lawyer has a tortured history with Trump. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
Former President Donald Trump reacts as Michael Cohen testified that he told Trump that the Stormy Daniels story was not contained. in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Michael Cohen, left, testifies on the witness stand in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Assistant district attorney Susan Hoffinger, center, questions witness Michael Cohen, far right, as Donald Trump, far left, looks on in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Michael Cohen testifies on the witness stand with a National Enquirer cover story about Donald Trump displayed on a screen in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)
