CHICAGO (AP) — Jameson Taillon allowed two hits over six innings, Dansby Swanson hit his 16th home run and the Chicago Cubs beat the Washington Nationals 3-1 on Friday to stave off elimination from postseason contention.
Pinch-hitter Mike Tauchman had a two-run single in the seventh for the Cubs (79-75), who have eight games left and closed within six games for the last NL wild card.
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A member off the Chicago Cubs medical staff examines Seiya Suzuki's right hand and wrist after Suzuki was hit by Washington Nationals catcher Drew Millas' throw to second as Suzuki stole the base during the eighth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs Seiya Suzuki sits on the ground after being hit by Washington Nationals catcher Drew Millas' throw to second as Suzuki stole the base during the eighth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs Seiya Suzuki lays in the ground after being hit by Washington Nationals catcher Drew Millas' throw to second as Suzuki stole the base during the eighth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs Seiya Suzuki lays in the ground after being hit by Washington Nationals catcher Drew Millas' throw to second as Suzuki stole the base during the eighth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs Seiya Suzuki lays in the ground after being hit by Washington Nationals catcher Drew Millas' throw to second as Suzuki stole the base during the eighth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs Seiya Suzuki lays in the ground after being hit by Washington Nationals catcher Drew Millas' throw to second as Suzuki stole the base during the eighth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Jameson Taillon delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Jameson Taillon winds up during the first inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs' Dansby Swanson celebrates his home run off Washington Nationals starting pitcher Trevor Williams with third base coach Willie Harris, during the first inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs' Dansby Swanson celebrates his home run off Washington Nationals starting pitcher Trevor Williams during the first inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
“We got a big swing from Dansby early in the game and props to Mike Tauchman, as well,” Chicago manager Craig Counsell said. “He's delivering very good at-bats from a pinch-hitting role.”
Washington has lost five straight games.
Taillon (11-8) struck out four, walked two and hit a batter, improving to 3-0 with a 1.99 ERA in his last five starts. He stranded the bases loaded in the third when José Tena lined out, and Taillion retired his last 10 batters.
“It was a really good effort," Counsell said. "It was crafty the way he pitched. ... His cutter to the backside, he had a lot of lefties in the lineup obviously, and his cutter to that side of the plate was really good.”
Tyson Miller retired Dylan Crews on a bases-loaded grounder in the seventh and gave up an eighth-inning homer to James Wood. Porter Hodge pitched a perfect ninth for his seventh save, finishing a five-hitter.
Trevor Williams (5-1), returning from a right flexor muscle strain that had sidelined him since May 30, allowed one run and three hits in five innings.
“Everything felt real good, take away one pitch from this outing,” Williams said. “I'm just thankful that I was be out there and give the team a chance to win."
Taillon enjoyed locking up with in a pitcher's duel with Williams, a Pittsburgh teammate for four seasons.
“We've stayed in touch really well over the years,” Taillon said. “Cool seeing him back out there healthy. I know fans probably want offense, but for me, selfishly, that's a lot of fun.”
Swanson homered into the left-center bleachers off Williams in the first inning.
Cubs first baseman Michael Busch dove over the tarp and stretched into the protective netting to catch Teña’s foul pop foul for the second out in the eighth.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Nationals: RHP Zach Brzykcy was optioned to Triple-A Rochester and transferred RHP Joan Adon to the 60-day injured list.
Cubs: OF Seiya Suzuki appeared to injure his hand stealing second in the eighth. Counsell didn't have an update, but suggested it wasn't serious. ... LHP Jordan Wicks was placed on the 15-day IL with a right oblique strain retroactive to Wednesday and recalled RHP Trey Wingenter from Triple-A Iowa. Wicks had been activated from a 60-day IL on Sept. 1 following an oblique strain and was 1-2 with a 7.50 ERA in four starts. … RHP Hayden Wesneski was activated from the 15-day IL (right forearm strain) and RHP Shawn Armstrong was designated for assignment.
UP NEXT
Washington LHP MacKenzie Gore (9-12, 4.17) faces Chicago RHP Kyle Hendricks (4-11, 6.25) on Saturday.
AP MLB: https://www.apnews.com/hub/MLB
A member off the Chicago Cubs medical staff examines Seiya Suzuki's right hand and wrist after Suzuki was hit by Washington Nationals catcher Drew Millas' throw to second as Suzuki stole the base during the eighth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs Seiya Suzuki sits on the ground after being hit by Washington Nationals catcher Drew Millas' throw to second as Suzuki stole the base during the eighth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs Seiya Suzuki lays in the ground after being hit by Washington Nationals catcher Drew Millas' throw to second as Suzuki stole the base during the eighth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs Seiya Suzuki lays in the ground after being hit by Washington Nationals catcher Drew Millas' throw to second as Suzuki stole the base during the eighth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs Seiya Suzuki lays in the ground after being hit by Washington Nationals catcher Drew Millas' throw to second as Suzuki stole the base during the eighth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs Seiya Suzuki lays in the ground after being hit by Washington Nationals catcher Drew Millas' throw to second as Suzuki stole the base during the eighth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Jameson Taillon delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Jameson Taillon winds up during the first inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs' Dansby Swanson celebrates his home run off Washington Nationals starting pitcher Trevor Williams with third base coach Willie Harris, during the first inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago Cubs' Dansby Swanson celebrates his home run off Washington Nationals starting pitcher Trevor Williams during the first inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Lebanese Red Cross says an Israeli airstrike in northern Lebanon has killed at least 18 people.
The strike hit a small apartment building in the village of Aito on Monday, and was one of the northernmost strikes since Israel invaded Lebanon earlier this month.
The Hezbollah militant group is mainly present in the south of the country and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
An Israeli airstrike on a hospital courtyard in the Gaza Strip early Monday killed at least four people and triggered a fire that swept through a tent camp for people displaced by the war, leaving more than two dozen with severe burns, according to Palestinian medics.
The Israeli military said it targeted militants hiding out among civilians, without providing evidence. In recent months it has repeatedly struck crowded shelters and tent camps, alleging that Hamas fighters were using them as staging grounds for attacks.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah was already struggling to treat a large number of wounded from an earlier strike on a school-turned-shelter that killed at least 20 people when the early morning airstrike hit and fire engulfed many of the tents.
Several secondary explosions could be heard after the initial strike, but it was not immediately clear if they were caused by weapons or fuel tanks.
Associated Press footage showed children among the wounded. A man sobbed as he carried a toddler with a bandaged head in his arms. Another small child with a bandaged leg was given a blood transfusion on the floor of the packed hospital.
Hospital records showed that four people were killed and 40 wounded. Twenty-five people were transferred to the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza after suffering severe burns, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Israel is still carrying out near-daily strikes across the Gaza Strip more than a year into the war, and has been waging a major ground assault in the north, where it says militants have regrouped.
The war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, while Palestinian militants abducted around 250 hostages. Around 100 are still being held inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters but says women and children make up more than half the fatalities. Around 90% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million people have been displaced by the war, often multiple times, and large areas of the coastal territory have been completely destroyed.
Israel has ordered the entire remaining population of the northern third of Gaza, estimated at around 400,000 people, to evacuate to the south and has not allowed any food to enter the north since the start of the month. Hundreds of thousands of people from the north heeded Israeli evacuation orders at the start of the war and have not been allowed to return.
That has raised fears among Palestinians that Israel intends to implement a plan devised by former generals in which it would order all civilians out of northern Gaza and label anyone remaining there a combatant — a surrender-or-starve strategy that rights groups say would violate international law.
The plan has been presented to the Israeli government, but it's unclear whether it has been adopted. The military says it has not received such orders.
Israeli rights groups on Monday called on the international community to prevent Israel from carrying out the plan, saying there are “alarming signs” that Israel is beginning to implement it.
The statement, signed by B'Tselem, Gisha, Yesh Din and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, warned that states “have an obligation to prevent the crimes of starvation and forcible transfer."
With no end in sight to the war in Gaza, Israel is also waging an air and ground war in southern Lebanon against the Hezbollah militant group, an ally of Hamas that has been firing rockets into northern Israel for more than a year. Israel has also threatened to strike Iran in retaliation for a ballistic missile attack, raising the prospect of an all-out regionwide war.
A Hezbollah aerial attack on an army base in northern Israel killed four soldiers — all of them 19 years old — and severely wounded seven others Sunday, the military said, in the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.
Hezbollah called the attack near Binyamina city retaliation for Israeli strikes on Beirut on Thursday that killed 22 people. It said it targeted Israel’s elite Golani brigade, launching dozens of missiles to occupy Israeli air defense systems during the assault by drones.
Israel’s national rescue service said the attack wounded 61. It’s rare for so many people to be wounded by drones or missiles, most of which are intercepted by Israel's multitiered air defenses or fall in open areas.
Magdy reported from Cairo.
Find more of AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Palestinians react to a fire after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Israeli soldiers mourn Sgt. Yosef Hieb, killed Sunday by a Hezbollah drone attack that wounded dozens and killed four soldiers, while at his funeral in Tuba Zangariyye, Israel, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Israeli soldiers mourn Sgt. Yosef Hieb, killed Sunday by a Hezbollah drone attack that wounded dozens and killed four soldiers, while at his funeral in Tuba Zangariyye, Israel, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
An Israeli Apache helicopter fires a missile towards southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Israeli soldiers display what they say are Hezbollah ammunition and explosives found during their ground operation in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)
Israeli soldiers display what they say is an entrance to a Hezbollah tunnel found during their ground operation in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)
Israeli soldiers are seen during a ground operation in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)
Israeli soldiers display what they say is an entrance to a Hezbollah tunnel found during their ground operation in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)
Israeli soldiers are seen during a ground operation in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)
Palestinians try to extinguish fire caused by an Israeli strike that hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinian firefighters try to extinguish a fire caused by an Israeli strike that hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians try to extinguish a fire caused by an Israeli strike that hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinian firefighters try to extinguish a fire caused by an Israeli strike that hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians react to a fire after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians inspect the damage at a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital, hit by an Israeli bombardment on Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A Palestinian man reacts to a fire after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians react to a fire after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians react to a fire after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians react to a fire after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
