Yamamoto allows only 1 hit in 6 scoreless innings and Betts homers as Dodgers hold off Braves 2-1

ATLANTA (AP) — Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed only one hit through six scoreless innings, Mookie Betts hit a home run and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 2-1 on Friday night for their sixth consecutive win.

Austin Riley doubled with two outs in the sixth inning for Atlanta's first hit off Yamamoto (4-2). The right-hander lowered his ERA to 0.90, the best mark in the major leagues. He left the game with a 2-0 lead.

Matt Olson led off the seventh with a homer off Dodgers right-hander Kirby Yates. Right-hander Evan Phillips walked Olson with two outs in the ninth before ending the game on Sean Murphy's grounder to the mound for his first save.

There was a rain delay of 1 hour, 13 minutes in the ninth.

Yamamoto walked Marcell Ozuna on 11 pitches in the first inning and walked Ozuna again in the fourth for Atlanta's only baserunners before Riley's double.

The Dodgers took a 1-0 lead against right-hander Grant Holmes (2-2) on Will Smith’s bases-loaded sacrifice fly to right field in the fourth inning. The fly ball drove in Betts, who reached on an infield hit off the back of Holmes upper left leg.

Holmes set a career high with nine strikeouts while allowing two runs on four hits in six-plus innings.

Betts’ fifth homer in the sixth extended the Dodgers’ lead to 2-0.

Yamamoto snagged a 106 mph line drive hit by Sean Murphy to open the second inning that was Atlanta’s biggest threat for a hit before Riley’s double to center field.

Through seven starts, Yamamoto has allowed four earned runs on 24 hits and 13 walks in 40 innings. He has given up five or fewer hits in each game.

The series continues with Saturday night's matchup of young right-handers, Atlanta's Spencer Schwellenbach (1-2, 2.87 ERA) and Roki Sasaki (0-1, 3.55) of Los Angeles.

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Los Angeles Dodgers two-way player Shohei Ohtani (17) prepares to bat against the Atlanta Braves in the first inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Umpire Lance Barksdale speaks on the phone during a rain delay in the ninth inning of a baseball game between the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Atlanta Braves shortstop Nick Allen (2) makes the play against Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Will Smith (16) in the seventh inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman (5) makes the catch against Atlanta Braves' Nick Allen in the nineth inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Kirby Yates (38) delivers against the Atlanta Braves in the seventh inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Atlanta Braves' Matt Olson (28) celebrates his solo homer with Ozzie Albies (1) in the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Atlanta Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies (1) loses the bat after stiking out in the second inning of a baseball gamem against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Los Angeles Dodgers two-way player Shohei Ohtani (17) strikes out against the Atlanta Braves in the first inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Grounds crew work during a rain delay in the ninth inning of a baseball game between the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Grounds crew work during a rain delay in the ninth inning of a baseball game between the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto (18) reacts after cathing a ball hit by Atlanta Braves' Sean Murphy in the X inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman (5) makes a catch off the Atlanta Braves in the third inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Los Angeles Dodgers' Mookie Betts (50) celebrates his solo homer against the Atlanta Braves in the sixth inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts (50) hits a single against the Atlanta Braves in the fourth inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Los Angeles Dodgers' Mookie Betts (50) celebrates his solo homer against the Atlanta Braves in the sixth inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Atlanta Braves first baseman Matt Olson (28) rounds the bases after hitting a solo homer against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the seventh inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Atlanta Braves pitcher Grant Holmes (66) delivers against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto (18) works against the Atlanta Braves in the first inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Los Angeles Dodgers' Mookie Betts (50) celebrates his solo homer against the Atlanta Braves in the sixth inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto (18) reacts in the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto (18) works against the Atlanta Braves in the first inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)