PITTSBURGH (AP) — Oneil Cruz hit a pair of two-run homers, Tommy Pham and Bryan Reynolds also went deep and the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the New York Mets 12-1 on Sunday to complete a three-game sweep.
Cruz ended a 14-game homerless drought and highlighted a five-run outburst off Frankie Montas (0-1) in the first inning. After strikeouts in his next two at-bats, Cruz hit his team-leading 15th homer in the seventh inning to extend the Pirates' lead to nine runs.
Click to Gallery
New York Mets' Luis Torrens (13) returns to the dugout after hitting a solo home run off Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Mike Burrows during the fifth inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Pirates' Tommy Pham, center, rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run off New York Mets pitcher Frankie Montas, left, during the first inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Pirates' Oneil Cruz (15) is greeted by Ke'Bryan Hayes (13) as he crosses home plate after hitting a two-run home run off New York Mets pitcher Frankie Montas (47) during the first inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Pirates' Oneil Cruz (15) rounds the bases after hitting a two-run home run off New York Mets pitcher Dedniel Núñez during the seventh inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Pirates' Oneil Cruz hits a two-run home run off New York Mets pitcher Dedniel Núñez during the seventh inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh added two more runs in the eighth inning and sent the Mets, who held a players only meeting after a 9-2 loss on Saturday, to their 13th setback in 16 games.
The Pirates scored all of their runs in the first inning with two outs. Ke’Bryan Hayes started with a two-run single, the first of his three hits. Cruz and Pham (two RBIs) followed with consecutive homers to right.
Montas lasted four innings, allowing six runs on seven hits.
Carmen Mlodzinski (2-5) allowed two hits in the final 3 2/3 innings, earning the win. Pirates starter Mike Burrows gave up one run and struck out five in 4 1/3 innings.
Pittsburgh catcher Henry Davis went 4 for 4. Reynolds hit his 10th homer of the season.
Luis Torrens put New York on the board with a home run off Burrows in the fifth.
Pittsburgh nearly came up empty in the first when Hayes passed on a sweeper over the heart of the plate to fall behind 1-2 in the count. After looking at a slider in the dirt, he sent the next pitch into center for two runs before Cruz and Pham broke the game open.
The Mets were outscored 30-4 in the series. The Pirates, who entered Sunday with the lowest run total in the National League (285), have scored 48 runs in their last seven games and scored at least nine in three straight games for the first time since Aug. 29-31, 2019, at Colorado.
Mets RHP Clay Holmes (8-4, 2.97 ERA) will start Tuesday in the opener of a three-game home series against the Brewers. RHP Freddy Peralta (8-4, 2.90 ERA) is scheduled for Milwaukee.
Pirates LHP Andrew Heaney (3-7, 4.48 ERA) opens the first of a three-game set against the Cardinals on Monday. RHP Erick Fedde (3-7, 4.11 ERA) will go for St. Louis.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB
New York Mets' Luis Torrens (13) returns to the dugout after hitting a solo home run off Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Mike Burrows during the fifth inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Pirates' Tommy Pham, center, rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run off New York Mets pitcher Frankie Montas, left, during the first inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Pirates' Oneil Cruz (15) is greeted by Ke'Bryan Hayes (13) as he crosses home plate after hitting a two-run home run off New York Mets pitcher Frankie Montas (47) during the first inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Pirates' Oneil Cruz (15) rounds the bases after hitting a two-run home run off New York Mets pitcher Dedniel Núñez during the seventh inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Pirates' Oneil Cruz hits a two-run home run off New York Mets pitcher Dedniel Núñez during the seventh inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.
With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?
“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”
Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”
Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.
Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.
Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”
Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.
“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.
Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.
Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.
Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."
“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.
The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.
The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”
Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”
Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.
Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.
“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”
Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”
Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.
“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.
Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”
“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.
AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.
In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)
