PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Zack Wheeler struck out 10 in eight innings, Nick Castellanos homered and the Philadelphia Phillies won in Bryce Harper’s return to the lineup, 4-0 over the San Diego Padres on Monday night.
Harper was hit by a pitch on the left foot, walked and lined into an unassisted double play as part of a 0-for-2 night in his first game since June 5. Harper returned from a nearly month-long layoff with right wrist inflammation to start at first base and bat third.
Wheeler (8-3) tossed six-hit ball and did not walk a batter in another sterling outing for the NL East leaders.
Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill did his part to keep the game from getting totally out of hand in the third when he reached well over the wall in straightaway center and robbed Max Kepler of a three-run homer.
The rest of the game was all Philadelphia.
PIRATES 7, CARDINALS 0
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Andrew Heaney carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning and Spencer Horwitz powered Pittsburgh’s offense as the Pirates cruised past St. Louis to match a season high with their fourth straight victory.
Heaney (4-7) allowed three hits and struck out seven with one walk on 95 pitches through 6 2/3 innings. After a 71-minute rain delay, he walked Brendan Donovan to start the game before retiring the next 16 batters.
Victor Scott II spoiled the no-hit bid with two outs in the sixth, lining the eighth pitch of his at-bat to left field for a single.
Heaney, a 34-year-old left-hander, gave up a combined 14 runs and 15 hits in eight innings across his previous two starts.
BLUE JAYS 5, YANKEES 4
TORONTO (AP) — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. broke a tie with a two-run single in the sixth inning and Toronto beat New York.
Guerrero went 2 for 4 with three RBIs and Ernie Clement had two hits and scored twice as the Blue Jays won for the fourth time in five games.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit a two-run homer and Cody Bellinger added a solo shot for the Yankees, who squandered a 3-1 lead.
Toronto tied it on RBI singles by pinch-hitter Nathan Lukes and Clement in the sixth. Blue Jays outfielder George Springer exited after crashing headfirst into Chisholm’s right leg trying to advance to third base on Guerrero’s go-ahead hit off Jonathan Loáisiga.
An inning earlier, Yankees outfielder Trent Grisham was removed because of a tight left hamstring. He was replaced by Jasson Domínguez.
Making his second start since returning from injury, Max Scherzer allowed two runs and three hits in five innings for Toronto. He struck out seven and walked none.
RED SOX 13, REDS 6
BOSTON (AP) — Wilyer Abreu hit a grand slam and an inside-the-park solo home run for Boston, Trevor Story hit a three-run homer in the first inning and the Red Sox defeated Cincinnati.
Boston knocked Cincinnati phenom right-hander Chase Burns out of the game with a seven-run first inning during his second major league start.
Jarren Duran went deep in the sixth with a solo shot for Boston, which won for the second time in nine games.
Austin Hays had a two-run triple and solo homer for the Reds, who had won five of seven.
Athletics 6, Rays 4
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Shea Langeliers smashed a three-run homer in his first plate appearance since coming off the injured list, and Lawrence Butler broke a ninth-inning tie with a two-run triple that lifted the Athletics over Tampa Bay.
The Athletics made two key defensive plays in the bottom of the eighth to keep it tied at 4.
The Rays had runners on first and second with no outs when Junior Caminero hit a hard grounder to third, but Max Muncy stepped on the bag and threw to first for a double play. Josh Lowe then singled to left field but Colby Thomas threw a dart to home plate to get Brandon Lowe.
Butler sent a shot to the wall in left-center field to score runners from second and third on his second triple of the season.
Sean Newcomb (2-4) got the final out in the eighth, and Mason Miller worked a scoreless ninth to earn his 16th save.
ORIOLES 10, RANGERS 6, 11 INNINGS
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Gunnar Henderson drove in four runs in extra innings and Baltimore beat Texasin 11 innings.
With the score tied 3-3 in the 10th, Henderson hit a two-run homer over the right-field wall and Colton Cowser added a solo shot for a three-run lead.
However, Adolis García smashed a three-run home run off the facade of the second deck in the bottom half to tie it 6-6.
In the 11th, Luis Vazquez singled into center to off Hoby Milner (1-2) score Ryan O’Hearn from second. Vazquez scored on Ramon Laureano’s third double of the game. Henderson then hit a two-run double off the right-field wall.
It was the fourth consecutive extra-inning game for the Rangers to tie a team record set in 2002.
MARINERS 6, ROYALS 2
SEATTLE (AP) — Cal Raleigh hit his major league-leading 33rd homer and Randy Arozarena connected twice as Seattle beat Kansas City.
Raleigh led off the seventh inning with a home run against reliever Daniel Lynch IV, prompting chants of “MVP! MVP!” from the home crowd.
Arozarena hit his 100th career homer with a solo shot in the fourth to give Seattle its first run. In the fifth, he broke open the game with a three-run drive, his 10th of the season. It was the first multihomer game for Arozarena since July 20, 2024.
George Kirby (2-4) allowed one run and three hits in six innings, striking out five without a walk. He also permitted just one run and three hits over six innings his previous time out at Minnesota.
Royals starter Michael Wacha (4-8) gave up five runs and eight hits over five innings.
DIAMONDBACKS 4, GIANTS 2
PHOENIX (AP) — Alek Thomas went 3 for 3 with two runs scored, Ryne Nelson struck out seven in 6 2/3 innings and Arizona snapped a four-game losing streak with a victory over San Francisco.
One pitch after Nelson was pulled in the seventh after exceeding his pitch count, Tyler Fitzgerald sent a shot to the warning track in center — just past a diving Thomas — to score two runs and tie it at 2.
The Diamondbacks answered with a run in the seventh on Geraldo Perdomo’s bloop single to score Thomas.
A controversial call for fan interference came in the top of the eighth on Christian Koss’ deep shot to left-center field, resulting in a ground-rule double. John Curtiss struck out Rafael Devers and Shelby Miller came in to get Heliot Ramos looking.
Eugenio Suarez added a solo shot in the eighth — his 11th home run in June.
The Giants have lost three in a row.
Philadelphia Phillies' Trea Turner follows through after hitting a run-scoring single against San Diego Padres pitcher Matt Waldron during the fourth inning of a baseball game Monday, June 30, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
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)
