Brandon Pfaadt strikes out career-high 11, Diamondbacks beat Mariners 3-2

SEATTLE (AP) — Brandon Pfaadt had a career-high 11 strikeouts, Ketel Marte broke a tie with an RBI double in the eighth inning, Christian Walker homered and the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Seattle Mariners 3-2 on Sunday.

Marte doubled off reliever Trent Thornton (0-1), scoring Kevin Newman from second to help end Arizona’s three-game losing streak.

“It feels great,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “I’m happy for these guys. They’re just grinding and getting after it and doing everything they can to win baseball games.”

Arizona relievers retired all nine batters they faced. Joe Mantiply (2-1) pitched the seventh for the victory, and Kevin Ginkel picked up his fifth save in seven opportunities.

Former Diamondback Josh Rojas led off the game with a homer for Seattle. It was his sixth career leadoff homer and his second in the three-game series.

Walker tied it with a homer in the second inning, his fifth.

Pfaadt equaled his previous career high of eight strikeouts in the fifth and finished his day by striking out the side in the sixth inning. He gave up up two runs on five hits in six innings and did not walk a batter. He relied heavily on his sweeper, throwing it 38 times out of his 96 pitches.

“We were sweeper heavy in the scouting report, but you never know until you get out there and see how it plays. It was playing today,” Pfaadt said. “We definitely threw more than normal and it just played right.”

Leo Rivas, making his major league debut for Seattle, tripled in the third inning and scored on Julio Rodriguez’s single. Rivas is the fourth player in Mariners history to triple in his first career plate appearance, and the first since Yuniesky Betancourt did it on July 28, 2005, against Cleveland.

The Mariners were poised to score more in the third, loading the bases with no outs. Pfaadt got Ty France to fly out and then Mitch Garver hit into a double play to end the threat, and the Mariners didn’t have another baserunner the rest of the game.

“Unfortunately, today I thought we had them right where we wanted them. We had their starter on the ropes a little bit in the third inning and he was able to wiggle out of it,” Seattle manager Scott Servais said. "It’s frustrating because I thought we were right there. In that game, in those moments early in the game you’ve got to create some separation and we just weren’t able to do that.”

Seattle’s Logan Gilbert also had a start start as he pitched into the seventh, giving up two runs on four hits and striking out a season-high nine. The only Diamondback to get a hit off Gilbert in the first six innings was Walker, who followed up his second-inning homer with a double in the fourth.

In the seventh inning, Joc Pederson and Eugenio Suarez had back-to-back doubles to tie it 2 and end Gilbert’s outing.

It was the 16th straight game a Mariners starter allowed two runs or fewer, extending the franchise record.

UP NEXT

Diamondbacks LHP Tommy Henry (1-1, 5.55 ERA) will start as Arizona opens a three-game series against the Dodgers at home Monday. Mariners RHP Bryce Miller (3-2, 2.22) will start Monday as Seattle continues a homestand against Atlanta.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Seattle Mariners shortstop Leo Rivas walks off the field after the top of the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Seattle Mariners manager Scott Servais, left, takes the ball from starting pitcher Logan Gilbert as he is relieved from the game against the Arizona Diamondbacks during the seventh inning of a baseball game Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Seattle Mariners' Josh Rojas rests his head on the ground after fouling a ball off his foot against the Arizona Diamondbacks during the fifth inning of a baseball game Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Seattle Mariners catcher Seby Zavala, left, talks with starting pitcher Logan Gilbert during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Arizona Diamondbacks' Joc Pederson scores on an RBI double from Eugenio Suárez against the Seattle Mariners during the seventh inning of a baseball game Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Arizona Diamondbacks' Joc Pederson hits a double against the Seattle Mariners during the seventh inning of a baseball game Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Arizona Diamondbacks relief pitcher Kevin Ginkel throws against the Seattle Mariners during the ninth inning of a baseball game Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Arizona Diamondbacks catcher Gabriel Moreno greets relief pitcher Kevin Ginkel after Ginkel earned the save in a 3-2 win over the Seattle Mariners in a baseball game Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Arizona Diamondbacks' Ketel Marte points after hitting an RBI double against the Seattle Mariners during the eighth inning of a baseball game Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Arizona Diamondbacks starting pitcher Brandon Pfaadt throws against the Seattle Mariners during the first inning of a baseball game Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

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 linked their 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 joined in the Manhattan courtroom by an entourage that included House Speaker Mike Johnson, who claimed the case was politically motivated by Democrats. It was a remarkable moment in American politics as the second in line to the presidency used the office's powerful pulpit to attack the U.S. judicial system, and sought to turn his political party against the rule of law by declaring the trial illegitimate.

Trump was also joined by 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.

“I do have a lot of surrogates, and they’re speaking very beautifully," Trump said outside the courtroom as they stood in the background.

Their presence Tuesday as Cohen, the prosecution's star witness, returns to the stand was 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.”

Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.

Michael Cohen, right, 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 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)