LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cincinnati came crashing into the postseason on the final day of the regular season, and the callow Reds are riding a surge of momentum they hope will carry them against the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
“The dangers are the youthful enthusiasm, the naivete,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “A way to combat that is we have to not take them lightly because it's a really good ballclub. We're playing against a team that essentially feels like they have nothing to lose.”
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Los Angeles Dodgers' Mookie Betts speaks during a news conference prior to baseball practice Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Los Angeles ahead of the Wild Card Series between the Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Dodgers grounds crew members paint the "Postseason" logo on the field at Dodger Stadium prior to baseball practice Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Los Angeles ahead of the Wild Card Series between the Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Blake Snell speaks during a news conference prior to baseball practice Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Los Angeles ahead of the Wild Card Series between the Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Hunter Greene speaks during a news conference prior to baseball practice Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Los Angeles ahead of the Wild Card Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Reds. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Hunter Greene (7-4) makes his first postseason start Tuesday night when the sixth-seeded Reds (83-79) return to the playoffs for the first time since 2020 with an NL Wild Card Series opener at Dodger Stadium, the best-of-three series will be played.
“Even in a short series, you’ll have ups and downs, and they just happen quicker,” first-year Reds manager Terry Francona said. “You try to have urgency without panic. Sometimes that’s a hard one to traverse. Get that word in there, too. I got that in a crossword puzzle today.”
Two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell (5-4) will be on the mound for the third-seeded Dodgers (93-69), who won the NL West for the 12th time in 13 years and are in the wild card for the first time since 2021.
“The only reason I came here was to pitch in October,” Snell said, “and to really challenge myself personally and see how good I am, face the best when the stakes are the highest.”
Cincinnati clinched a postseason berth Sunday, the first time the club has done so on the final day of the regular season. The Reds snagged the National League's third and final wild card when the New York Mets lost to the Miami Marlins. With similar records, the Reds owned the head-to-head tiebreaker after going 4-2 against the Mets during the season.
“We've been playing do-or-die baseball now for what feels like the last month or two. I think we can use that to our advantage,” said Reds second baseman Gavin Lux, who won World Series titles with the Dodgers in 2020 and last year. “It's whoever gets hot and the playoffs are a crapshoot. I'm ready to get out there and try to kick their you-know-whats.”
The Dodgers dominated the Reds during the season, winning five of six and outscoring Cincinnati 30-15.
“Being at home, not having to travel, it’s important for us to strike early and really not let these guys hang around and gain confidence,” Roberts said. “I’ve talked about edge, and just keeping our edge and not kind of giving these guys any opportunity of life.”
The wild card winner advances to a NL Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12-8, 2.49 ERA) will start Game 2 for the Dodgers on Wednesday.
Shohei Ohtani (1-1, 2.87) will probably make his postseason pitching debut if the best-of-three series goes to a third game on Thursday, Roberts said.
The two-way superstar didn't pitch for the Dodgers last season while recovering from a second elbow surgery and he never made the playoffs during six seasons with the Los Angeles Angels.
At the plate, Ohtani revived himself this month, hitting .312 with 10 home runs and a 1.165 OPS. He finished the regular season with a career-high 55 homers, one more than his 54 homers during his historic 50-50 season in 2024.
The Reds will start Zack Littell (10-8) in Game 2, with Nick Lodolo available out of the bullpen. Left-hander Andrew Abbott (10-7) would go in Game 3, if necessary.
Greene took in a couple World Series games as a spectator at Dodger Stadium last season. He grew up a fan of his hometown team and will be pitching in front of family and friends Tuesday, including his father Russell, who coached him as a kid.
“To be here, it’s a full-circle moment," he said. “Just really special.”
The teams are meeting for the second time in the postseason. The Reds swept the Dodgers in three games in the 1995 NL Division Series.
Francona guided the Boston Red Sox to World Series titles in 2004 and 2007 and took Cleveland there in 2016. His 44 postseason wins are tied with Hall of Famer Jim Leyland for seventh in major league history.
Roberts' 56 postseason wins rank sixth overall and include World Series championships in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and last year. He has yet to miss the postseason in 10 years at the helm of the Dodgers.
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Los Angeles Dodgers' Mookie Betts speaks during a news conference prior to baseball practice Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Los Angeles ahead of the Wild Card Series between the Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Dodgers grounds crew members paint the "Postseason" logo on the field at Dodger Stadium prior to baseball practice Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Los Angeles ahead of the Wild Card Series between the Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Blake Snell speaks during a news conference prior to baseball practice Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Los Angeles ahead of the Wild Card Series between the Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Hunter Greene speaks during a news conference prior to baseball practice Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Los Angeles ahead of the Wild Card Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Reds. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans voted to dismiss a war powers resolution Wednesday that would have limited President Donald Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks on Venezuela after two GOP senators reversed course on supporting the legislation.
Trump put intense pressure on five Republican senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week and ultimately prevailed in heading off passage of the legislation. Two of the Republicans — Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana — flipped under the pressure.
Vice President JD Vance had to break the 50-50 deadlock in the Senate on a Republican motion to dismiss the bill.
The outcome of the high-profile vote demonstrated how Trump still has command over much of the Republican conference, yet the razor-thin vote tally also showed the growing concern on Capitol Hill over the president’s aggressive foreign policy ambitions.
Democrats forced the debate after U.S. troops captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month
“Here we have one of the most successful attacks ever and they find a way to be against it. It’s pretty amazing. And it’s a shame,” Trump said at a speech in Michigan Tuesday. He also hurled insults at several of the Republicans who advanced the legislation, calling Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky a “stone cold loser” and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine “disasters.” Those three Republicans stuck to their support for the legislation.
Trump’s latest comments followed earlier phone calls with the senators, which they described as terse. The president’s fury underscored how the war powers vote had taken on new political significance as Trump also threatens military action to accomplish his goal of possessing Greenland.
The legislation, even if it had cleared the Senate, had virtually no chance of becoming law because it would eventually need to be signed by Trump himself. But it represented both a test of GOP loyalty to the president and a marker for how much leeway the Republican-controlled Senate is willing to give Trump to use the military abroad. Republican angst over his recent foreign policy moves — especially threats of using military force to seize Greenland from a NATO ally — is still running high in Congress.
Hawley, who helped advance the war powers resolution last week, said Trump’s message during a phone call was that the legislation “really ties my hands.” The senator said he had a follow-up phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio Monday and was told “point blank, we’re not going to do ground troops.”
The senator added that he also received assurances that the Trump administration will follow constitutional requirements if it becomes necessary to deploy troops again to the South American country.
“We’re getting along very well with Venezuela,” Trump told reporters at a ceremony for the signing of an unrelated bill Wednesday.
As senators went to the floor for the vote Wednesday evening, Young also told reporters he was no longer in support. He said that he had extensive conversations with Rubio and received assurances that the secretary of state will appear at a public hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Young also shared a letter from Rubio that stated the president will “seek congressional authorization in advance (circumstances permitting)” if he engaged in “major military operations” in Venezuela.
The senators also said his efforts were also instrumental in pushing the administration to release Wednesday a 22-page Justice Department memo laying out the legal justification for the snatch-and-grab operation against Maduro.
That memo, which was heavily redacted, indicates that the administration, for now, has no plans to ramp up military operations in Venezuela.
“We were assured that there is no contingency plan to engage in any substantial and sustained operation that would amount to a constitutional war,” according to the memo signed by Assistant Attorney General Elliot Gaiser.
Trump has used a series of legal arguments for his campaign against Maduro.
As he built up a naval force in the Caribbean and destroyed vessels that were allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, the Trump administration tapped wartime powers under the global war on terror by designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
The administration has claimed the capture of Maduro himself was actually a law enforcement operation, essentially to extradite the Venezuelan president to stand trial for charges in the U.S. that were filed in 2020.
Paul criticized the administration for first describing its military build-up in Caribbean as a counternarcotics operation but now floating Venezuela’s vast oil reserves as a reason for maintaining pressure.
"The bait and switch has already happened,” he said.
Lawmakers, including a significant number of Republicans, have been alarmed by Trump’s recent foreign policy talk. In recent weeks, he has pledged that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela for years to come, threatened military action to take possession of Greenland and told Iranians protesting their government that “ help is on its way.”
Senior Republicans have tried to massage the relationship between Trump and Denmark, a NATO ally that holds Greenland as a semi-autonomous territory. But Danish officials emerged from a meeting with Vance and Rubio Wednesday saying a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains.
"What happened tonight is a roadmap to another endless war," Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference following the vote.
More than half of U.S. adults believe President Donald Trump has “gone too far” in using the U.S. military to intervene in other countries, according to a new AP-NORC poll.
House Democrats have also filed a similar war powers resolution and can force a vote on it as soon as next week.
Last week's procedural vote on the war powers resolution was supposed to set up hours of debate and a vote on final passage. But Republican leaders began searching for a way to defuse the conflict between their members and Trump as well as move on quickly to other business.
Once Hawley and Young changed their support for the bill, Republicans were able to successfully challenge whether it was appropriate when the Trump administration has said U.S. troops are not currently deployed in Venezuela.
“We’re not currently conducting military operations there,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune in a floor speech. “But Democrats are taking up this bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds.”
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who has brought a series of war powers resolutions this year, accused Republicans of burying a debate about the merits of an ongoing campaign of attacks and threats against Venezuela.
"If this cause and if this legal basis were so righteous, the administration and its supporters would not be afraid to have this debate before the public and the United States Senate," he said in a floor speech.
Associated Press writers Josh Goodman, Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick and Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with oil executives in the East Room of the White House, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., talks with reporters outside the Senate chamber during a vote at the Capitol, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks with reporters at the Senate Subway on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks during a news conference at the Capitol, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
