Rockies score 4 runs in 9th inning against Cade Smith to rally for 8-6 win over Guardians

CLEVELAND (AP) — Tyler Freeman singled home the go-ahead run off Cade Smith as Colorado scored four times in the ninth inning Monday night, rallying the Rockies to an 8-6 victory over the Cleveland Guardians after the first pitch was delayed 2 1/2 hours by rain.

Smith (2-4) moved into the closer role earlier in the day when Emmanuel Clase was placed on non-disciplinary paid leave as part of a Major League Baseball investigation into sports betting. Smith gave up four runs, one earned, and got only one out after entering with a 5-4 lead.

Colorado scored the tying run on a throwing error by Smith, bringing rookie Warming Bernabel around from second after his leadoff double. Hunter Goodman had an RBI double in the ninth after hitting a solo homer in the eighth off Hunter Gaddis.

Tyler Kinley (1-3) tossed a scoreless eighth and Seth Halvorsen gave up an RBI single to Nolan Jones in the ninth before earning his 11th save.

The Guardians went in front 5-3 with a five-run seventh, highlighted by pinch-hitter Bo Naylor’s three-run homer against Jake Bird. Carlos Santana drew a bases-loaded walk from Victor Vodnik to put Cleveland ahead.

Freeman drove in three runs against his former team and Bernabel hit his second homer in three big league games. Bradley Blalock struck out a career-high seven in six scoreless innings for the Rockies, who have the worst record in the majors at 28-78.

Brenton Doyle put down a sacrifice bunt with nobody out in the ninth and reached second base safely when Smith threw the ball wildly to first. Doyle wound up scoring the go-ahead run.

The Rockies sent 10 batters to the plate in the ninth against Smith and Tim Herrin, collecting three hits, two walks and a hit batter.

Rockies RHP Tanner Gordon (2-2, 3.13 ERA) faces LHP Logan Allen (6-9, 4.16 ERA) in the middle game of the series Tuesday.

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Colorado Rockies' Orlando Arcia (11) is tagged out between third base and home plate by Cleveland Guardians first baseman Carlos Santana, right, in the fifth inning of a baseball game in Cleveland, Monday, July 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Cleveland Guardians' Nolan Jones (22) catches a fly ball hit for an out by Colorado Rockies' Mickey Moniak in the third inning of a baseball game in Cleveland, Monday, July 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Colorado Rockies' Bradley Blalock (64) pitches in the first inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians in Cleveland, Monday, July 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Colorado Rockies' Tyler Freeman hits an RBI single in the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians in Cleveland, Monday, July 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Myanmar insisted Friday that its deadly military campaign against the Rohingya ethnic minority was a legitimate counter-terrorism operation and did not amount to genocide, as it defended itself at the top United Nations court against an allegation of breaching the genocide convention.

Myanmar launched the campaign in Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. Security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes as more than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh.

“Myanmar was not obliged to remain idle and allow terrorists to have free reign of northern Rakhine state,” the country’s representative Ko Ko Hlaing told black-robed judges at the International Court of Justice.

African nation Gambia brought a case at the court in 2019 alleging that Myanmar's military actions amount to a breach of the Genocide Convention that was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.

Some 1.2 million members of the Rohingya minority are still languishing in chaotic, overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, where armed groups recruit children and girls as young as 12 are forced into prostitution. The sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed last year by U.S. President Donald Trump shuttered thousands of the camps’ schools and have caused children to starve to death.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982.

As hearings opened Monday, Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow said his nation filed the case after the Rohingya “endured decades of appalling persecution, and years of dehumanizing propaganda. This culminated in the savage, genocidal ‘clearance operations’ of 2016 and 2017, which were followed by continued genocidal policies meant to erase their existence in Myanmar.”

Hlaing disputed the evidence Gambia cited in its case, including the findings of an international fact-finding mission set up by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council.

“Myanmar’s position is that the Gambia has failed to meet its burden of proof," he said. "This case will be decided on the basis of proven facts, not unsubstantiated allegations. Emotional anguish and blurry factual pictures are not a substitute for rigorous presentation of facts.”

Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi represented her country at jurisdiction hearings in the case in 2019, denying that Myanmar armed forces committed genocide and instead casting the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she led as an unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.

The pro-democracy icon is now in prison after being convicted of what her supporters call trumped-up charges after a military takeover of power.

Myanmar contested the court’s jurisdiction, saying Gambia was not directly involved in the conflict and therefore could not initiate a case. Both countries are signatories to the genocide convention, and in 2022, judges rejected the argument, allowing the case to move forward.

Gambia rejects Myanmar's claims that it was combating terrorism, with Jallow telling judges on Monday that “genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from Myanmar’s pattern of conduct.”

In late 2024, prosecutors at another Hague-based tribunal, the International Criminal Court, requested an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime for crimes committed against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power from Suu Kyi in 2021, is accused of crimes against humanity for the persecution of the Rohingya. The request is still pending.

FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2017, file photo, smoke rises from a burned house in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, where the vast majority of the country's 1.1 million Rohingya lived, Myanmar. (AP Photo, File)