CINCINNATI (AP) — Spencer Steer homered in consecutive at-bats and drove in five runs, and Elly De La Cruz hit his team-leading 21st homer as the Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals 6-1 on Monday night.
Andrew Abbott (10-9) allowed one run and five hits in 6 2/3 innings to snap his three-game losing streak. The left-hander was tagged for 12 earned runs over his previous 13 1/3 innings.
Cardinals starter Sonny Gray (11-7) struck out nine in five innings, but is winless in three career starts against his former club. He gave up six runs and five hits, including three homers.
Abbott escaped bases-loaded jams in the second and third. He finished with six strikeouts and retired 11 straight batters during one stretch.
Steer and De La Cruz homered on successive pitches from Gray to put Cincinnati ahead 3-1 in the third. It was the fifth time this season the Reds hit back-to-back homers.
ASTROS 6, RAYS 1
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Framber Valdez followed up his no-hit bid with 5 2/3 strong innings, and the AL West-leading won their six straight game by beating Tampa Bay.
Alex Bregman and Yainer Diaz homered for the Astros, who lead the division by one-half game over idle Seattle.
Valdez (12-5) improved to 7-0 in his last nine starts after allowing three hits, one walk and striking out nine. The lefty was pulled after walking Yandy Díaz on his 101st pitch.
Tayler Scott and Kaleb Ort completed a four-hitter.
GUARDIANS 9, CUBS 8
CLEVELAND (AP) — Josh Naylor drove in José Ramírez with the go-ahead run in the eighth inning and the Cleveland held on for a win over the Chicago Cubs.
Rookie Jhonkensy Noel hit a three-run homer and solo shot, and he made a diving catch in right field to save a couple runs for the AL Central-leading Guardians, who returned home after splitting a tense, four-game series at second-place Minnesota.
Steven Kwan added a two-run homer as the Guardians improved the league’s best home record to 36-20.
Ramírez opened the eighth with a double off Julian Merryweather (1-1) and pinch-hitter Will Brennan singled before Naylor bounced his base hit into left.
The Cubs led 3-0 and then fell behind 8-3 before tying it with four runs in the seventh and one in the eighth off Cleveland’s vaunted bullpen.
TWINS 8, ROYALS 3
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Willi Castro had a three-run home run and Royce Lewis hit a two-run shot in a six-run second inning for Minnesota on the way to a victory over Kansas City to open a key series between the division rivals and close wild card competitors.
The Twins, who improved to 6-2 against the Royals this season, remained 3 1/2 games behind American League Central leader Cleveland after splitting a four-game series with the Guardians during the weekend. The third-place Royals dropped to five games back.
The Twins (66-52) occupy the second AL wild card spot. The Royals (65-54) control the third spot, with a two-game cushion above the cut in their refreshing push to return to the playoffs for the first time since they won the 2015 World Series.
DODGERS 5, BREWERS 2
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Mookie Betts homered and drove in three runs to mark his return from a broken left hand, Shohei Ohtani also went deep and the Los Angeles defeated Milwaukee.
Clayton Kershaw struck out six in his first win this season, allowing one run over 5 2/3 innings as the Dodgers took the opener of a four-game series between NL division leaders.
The Dodgers activated Betts from the injured list earlier in the day and had him playing right field and batting second, with Ohtani leading off. Betts primarily had been playing shortstop and leading off this year before his hand got hit by a 98 mph fastball from Kansas City’s Dan Altavilla on June 16.
Milwaukee cut Los Angeles’ lead to 4-2 in the sixth when William Contreras greeted Joe Kelly with a two-out, two-run homer to right. Willy Adames and Gary Sánchez then hit back-to-back singles to put the potential tying run on base before Kelly struck out Rhys Hoskins to end the rally.
RED SOX 5, RANGERS 4, 10 INNINGS
BOSTON (AP) — Rob Refsnyder hit a game-winning single with two outs in the 10th inning after pinch-hitter Enmanuel Valdez’s double tied the score, lifting Boston to a 5-4 victory over fading Texas to snap a four-game losing streak Monday night.
Corey Seager had a tying, two-run homer for defending World Series champion Texas (55-64), which lost for the ninth time in 12 games to fall a season-low nine games under .500.
With automatic runner Romy Gonzalez on second, Valdez hit a drive to the edge of the triangle in right-center off Gerson Garabito (0-1) that just got past Leody Taveras and bounced into the stands for a ground-rule double.
Nick Sogard blooped a single to center and Mickey Gasper drew a one-out walk in his major league debut against Walter Pennington to load the bases. Following a force at home on Masataka Yoshida’s grounder, Refsnyder hit a 2-0 pitch for the winner.
Josh Winckowski (3-1) got the victory.
WHITE SOX 12, YANKEES 2
CHICAGO (AP) — Gavin Sheets matched a career high with four hits and drove in four runs, Korey Lee and Brooks Baldwin homered, and the Chicago White Sox gave interim manager Grady Sizemore his first win, pounding the New York Yankees.
The White Sox set season highs for runs and with 18 hits. They had lost three straight since beating Oakland to stop a 21-game skid that matched an American League record.
Lee connected leading off a two-run fourth against Yankees starter Luis Gil. Baldwin capped a six-run seventh with a three-run drive against Enyel De Los Santos that made it 11-2.
Sheets hit RBI doubles in a two-run first, in the fifth against Tim Hill and in the seventh off De Los Santos. He also scored in the inning on a single by Dominic Fletcher, and singled in a run in the eighth.
Andrew Vaughn had four hits and scored twice, helping the White Sox take out a team that came in tied with Baltimore for baseball’s best record.
New York’s Aaron Judge doubled in a run in the first against rookie Ky Bush. He came a few feet short of his 300th home run and a grand slam when he hit a fly to the warning track in the second.
DIAMONDBACKS 5, ROCKIES 4
PHOENIX (AP) — Corbin Carroll and Kevin Newman scrambled home on back-to-back wild pitches in the seventh inning, leading Arizona past Colorado for their fourth straight win.
The D-backs continued their extended roll, with an 18-5 record since the All-Star break.
Joc Pederson came to the plate in the seventh with Arizona trailing 4-3, two outs and runners on first and third, but he never had to hit the ball to put his team ahead. Tyler Kinley’s first wild pitch scored Carroll easily and Newman advanced all the way to third after getting a head start while stealing second.
Two pitches later, Kinley bounced another pitch that catcher Elias Díaz couldn’t quite handle. Newman made a daring dash home, sliding in ahead of the throw for the lead.
Jake McCarthy added two hits and two RBIs. Newman and Josh Bell also had two hits. Justin Martinez handled the ninth — working around a leadoff single — for his third save.
BLUE JAYS 4, ANGELS 2
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Bowden Francis pitched seven dominant innings and Will Wagner got hits in the first three at-bats of his major league debut as Toronto beat the Los Angeles Angels.
Leo Jiménez launched his first career home run and the last-place Blue Jays won the opener of a six-game trip after losing four of their previous five road games.
Mickey Moniak and Jo Adell homered for the Angels, who lost for the third time in four games after earning a series win on the road against the New York Yankees.
PADRES 2, PIRATES 1
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Xander Bogaerts had an RBI single in the seventh inning, Jackson Merrell made a game-saving diving catch in the ninth inning, and Joe Musgrove had a solid return from the 60-day injured list as San Diego beat Pittsburgh.
Musgrove, sidelined since May 26 due to right elbow inflammation, gave up two hits and walked one while striking out one in 4 1/3 scoreless innings. He pitched effectively, mixing his sliders, changeups and four-seam fastballs.
When Musgrove came out of the game in the fifth inning, he received a standing ovation from the 38th sold-out crowd of the season at Petco Park. He patted his heart and waived to the crowd while walking into the dugout.
Jeremiah Estrada (4-2) got the win for the Padres after pitching one inning in relief and closer Robert Suarez earned his 26th save after giving up two singles and a run in the ninth inning.
BRAVES 1, GIANTS 0, 10 INNINGS
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Chris Sale and Blake Snell put on a pitching show Monday night in a matchup of aces before Atlanta edged San Francisco on Travis d’Arnaud’s sacrifice fly in the 10th inning.
Snell carried a no-hit bid through six innings, 10 days after throwing his first career no-hitter at Cincinnati. The left-hander gave up Marcell Ozuna’s leadoff double in the seventh on his 103rd pitch.
Matt Olson followed with an infield single, but Snell struck out Orlando Arcia before getting pulled. The two-time Cy Young Award winner struck out 11 and walked three.
Sale fanned 12 without a walk in seven innings of three-hit ball. The eight-time All-Star lowered his ERA to 2.61 in his first season with Atlanta, which moved a game ahead of the New York Mets for the final National League wild card.
Cincinnati Reds' Spencer Steer hits a three-run home run during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Kareem Elgazzar)
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — When school started this year for Mikalay in Belarus, the 15-year-old discovered that his teachers and administrators no longer called him by that name. Instead, they referred to him as Nikolai, its Russian equivalent.
What's more, classes at his school — one of the country's best — are now taught in Russian, not Belarusian, which he has spoken for most of his life.
Belarusians like Mikalay are experiencing a new wave of Russification as Moscow expands its economic, political and cultural dominance to overtake the identity of its neighbor.
It's not the first time. Russia under the czars and in the era of the Soviet Union imposed its language, symbols and cultural institutions on Belarus. But with the demise of the USSR in 1991, the country began to assert its identity, and Belarusian briefly became the official language, with the white-red-white national flag replacing a version of the red hammer and sickle.
But all that changed in 1994, after Alexander Lukashenko, a former Soviet collective farm official, came to power. The authoritarian leader made Russian an official language, alongside Belarusian, and did away with the nationalist symbols.
Now, with Lukashenko in control of the country for over three decades, he has allowed Russia to dominate all aspects of life in Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people. Belarusian, which like Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, is hardly heard on the streets of Minsk and other large cities anymore.
Official business is conducted in Russian, which dominates the majority of the media. Lukashenko speaks only Russian, and government officials often don't use their native tongue.
The country depends on Russian loans and cheap energy and has created a political and military alliance with Moscow, allowing President Vladimir Putin to deploy troops and missiles on its soil, which was used as a staging area for the war in Ukraine.
“I understand that our Belarus is occupied. … And who is the president there? Not Lukashenko. The president is Putin,” said Svetlana Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize for literature and lives in Germany in effective exile. “The nation has been humiliated and it will be very difficult for Belarusians to recover from this.”
Belarusian cultural figures have been persecuted and hundreds of its nationalist organizations have been closed. Experts say Moscow is seeking to implement in Belarus what the Kremlin intended to do in neighboring Ukraine when the war there began in 2022.
“It is obvious that our children are being deliberately deprived of their native language, history and Belarusian identity, but parents have been strongly advised not to ask questions about Russification,” said Mikalay’s father, Anatoly, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition his last name not be used, for fear of retribution.
“We were informed about the synchronization of the curriculum with Russia this year and were shown a propaganda film about how the Ukrainian special services are allegedly recruiting our teenagers and forcing them to commit sabotage in Belarus,” he said.
Mikalay's school was one of the few where paperwork and some courses were conducted in Belarusian. In recent years, however, dozens of teachers were fired and the Belarusian-language section of its website vanished.
Human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, convicted in 2023 on charges stemming from his Nobel Peace Prize-winning work, demanded his trial be conducted in Belarusian. The court rejected it and sentenced him to 10 years.
Lukashenko derides his native language, saying “nothing great can be expressed in Belarusian. … There are only two great languages in the world: Russian and English.”
Speaking to Russian state media, Lukashenko recounted how Putin once thanked him for making Russian the dominant language in Belarus.
“I said, ‘Wait, what are you thanking me for? ... The Russian language is my language, we were part of one empire, and we're taking part in (helping) that language develop,'” Lukashenko said.
Belarus was part of the Russian empire for centuries and became one of 15 Soviet republics after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Daily use of the Belarusian language decreased and continued only in the country's west and north and in rural areas.
In 1994, about 40% of students were taught in Belarusian; it's now down to under 9%.
Although Belarusian, like Russian, is an eastern Slavic language, its vocabulary is considerably different. In 1517, Belarusian publisher Francysk Skaryna was one of the first in eastern Europe to translate the Bible into his native language.
Even speaking Belarusian is seen as a show of opposition to Lukashenko and a declaration of national identity. That played a key role in the mass protests after the disputed 2020 election gave the authoritarian leader a sixth term. In the harsh crackdown that followed, a half-million people fled the country.
“The Belarusian language is increasingly perceived as a sign of political disloyalty and is being abandoned in favor of Russian in the public administration, education, culture and the mass media, upon orders from the hierarchy or out of fear of discrimination,” said Anaïs Marin, the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in Belarus.
At the same time, “more people want to speak Belarusian, which has become one of the symbols of freedom, but they're afraid to do it in public,” said Alina Nahornaja, author of “Language 404,” a book about Belarusians who experienced discrimination for speaking their native language.
Like Ukraine, Belarusians had a desire for rapprochement with Europe that accompanied their nationalist sentiment, said Belarusian analyst Valery Karbalevich.
“But the Kremlin quickly realized the danger and began the process of creeping Russification in Belarus,” he added.
That prompted pro-Russian organizations, joint educational programs and cultural projects to spring up "like mushrooms after the rain — against the backdrop of harsh repressions against everything Belarusian,” Karbalevich said.
Censorship and bans affect not only contemporary Belarusian literature but also its classics. In 2023, the prosecutor’s office declared as extremist the 19th-century poems of Vincent Dunin-Martsinkyevich, who opposed the Russian Empire.
When the Kremlin began supporting Lukashenko against the anti-government protests in 2020, it ensured his loyalty and received carte blanche in Belarus.
“Today, Lukashenko is paying Putin with our sovereignty,” said exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. “Belarusian national identity, cultures and language are our strongest weapons against the Russian world and Russification.”
Four cities in Belarus now host a “Russia House” to promote its culture and influence, offering seminars, film clubs, exhibitions and competitions.
“The goal is to plant Russian narratives so that as many Belarusians as possible view Russian as their own,” said analyst Alexander Friedman. “The Kremlin spares no expense and acts on a grand scale, which could be especially effective and dangerous in a situation where Belarus has found itself in information isolation, and there is almost no one left inside the country to resist the Russian world.”
Almost the entire troupe of the Yanka Kupala Theater, the country’s oldest, fled Belarus amid the political crackdown. Its former director, Pavel Latushka, now an opposition figure abroad, said the new management couldn't recruit enough new actors, and had to invite Russians, “but it turned out that no one knew the Belarusian language.”
“Putin published an article denying the existence of an independent Ukraine back in 2021, and even then we understood perfectly well that he was pursuing similar goals in Belarus," Latushka said.
“The main course was supposed to be Ukraine,” he added, with a Russified Belarus "as a dessert.”
FILE - Nina Bahinskaya, 73, poses for a photo holding a flag that became the symbole of the opposition at an entrance of her apartment building in Minsk, Belarus, on Sept. 10, 2020. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Belarusians in national costumes walk to the Berezina River in a ritual marking the summer solstice in the village of Parichi, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) southeast of Minsk, Belarus, on July 6, 2022. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - A woman walks past a poster that reads "Referendum on constitutional amendments" in Minsk, Belarus, on Feb. 18, 2022. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Ales Bialiatski, the head of the Viasna human rights group, sits in a defendants' cage at a court session in Minsk, Belarus, on Jan. 5, 2023. (Vitaly Pivovarchyk/BelTA Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 Nobel literature laureate, center, and Pavel Latushko, former culture minister and ambassador to France, left, walk amid supporters and journalists on their way to the office of the Belarusian Investigative Committee in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 26, 2020. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Protesters shine the lights on their phones and wave red-and-white flags that became symbols of the opposition during an anti-government demonstration in Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 19, 2020. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and his Belarus counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, talk at an economic summit in the Kremlin, in Moscow, Russia, on Dec. 23, 2014. (AP Photo/ Maxim Shipenkov, Pool, File)
FILE - Protesters carry a man injured during clashes with police amid demonstrations in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 10, 2020. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Protesters with old Belarusian national flags march at an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, on Sept. 6, 2020. (AP Photo, File)
FILE – A protester holds a red-and-white flag that was a symbol of the opposition in front of a police line during an anti-government demonstration in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 30, 2020.(AP Photo, File)
FILE - Belarusian athletes carry the country’s flag during celebrations marking Independence Day in Minsk, Belarus, on July 3, 2013. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Schoolchildren march during the traditional opening of the school year, known as the Day of Knowledge, in Minsk, Belarus, on Sept. 1, 2018. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Schoolchildren perform at a ceremony marking Belarus’ holiday honoring the state flag and emblem in Minsk, Belarus, on May 13, 2012. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko speaks to schoolchildren at Independence Day celebrations in Minsk, Belarus, on July 3, 2020. (AP Photo, File)
