ST. LOUIS (AP) — JJ Bleday homered twice and Zack Gelof had a home run among his three hits as the Athletics snapped a three-game skid with an 11-3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday.
Luis Morales (3-0) allowed two runs on five hits and struck out a career-best eight batters in 5 2/3 innings. It was the first time Morales had allowed multiple runs in six career appearances.
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St. Louis Cardinals' Ivan Herrera celebrates after hitting a solo home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Athletics Monday, Sept. 1, 2025, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Athletics' Brent Rooker follows through on a ground-rule double to score Lawrence Butler during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Monday, Sept. 1, 2025, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Athletics' Zack Gelof arrives home after hitting a solo home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Monday, Sept. 1, 2025, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Athletics' JJ Bleday follows through on a two-run home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Monday, Sept. 1, 2025, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Sonny Gray (12-8) allowed seven runs on 10 hits and three walks in six-plus innings for the Cardinals, who lost their second straight after winning three in a row.
Bleday hit his second homer of the game and 12th of the season in the sixth inning to extend the Athletics’ lead to 5-1. It was the second multi-homer game for the 27-yera-old outfielder.
Bleday hit a two-run shot in the fourth and Gelof followed with a 385-foot shot to right field.
Darell Hernaiz doubled to leadoff the sixth inning, and Colby Thomas singled to center field to drive him in to give the Athletics a 4-1 lead.
Iván Herrera his his 12th home run of the season to leadoff the bottom of the fourth inning to put the Cardinals on the board.
Bleday hit a two-run shot down the right field line for his first homer of the game, and Gelof added his second homer of the season two pitches later to give the Athletics a 3-0 lead in the top of the fourth. It was the third time the Athletics hit consecutive homers this season.
Athletics DH Brent Rooker was 2 for 5 with a pair of doubles and 3 RBIs.
Athletics RHP Luis Severino (6-11, 4.82 ERA) faces Cardinals RHP Miles Mikolas (6-10, 5.04) Tuesday night.
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St. Louis Cardinals' Ivan Herrera celebrates after hitting a solo home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Athletics Monday, Sept. 1, 2025, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Athletics' Brent Rooker follows through on a ground-rule double to score Lawrence Butler during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Monday, Sept. 1, 2025, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Athletics' Zack Gelof arrives home after hitting a solo home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Monday, Sept. 1, 2025, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Athletics' JJ Bleday follows through on a two-run home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Monday, Sept. 1, 2025, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
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)
