Reds get six shutout innings from Chase Burns and JJ Bleday homers twice in 15-1 rout of Nationals

CINCINNATI (AP) — Chase Burns threw six scoreless innings, JJ Bleday homered twice and drove in six runs, and the Cincinnati Reds avoided being swept by the Washington Nationals with a 15-1 victory Thursday afternoon at Great American Ball Park.

Burns (5-1) allowed two hits while striking out seven and walking two to win his fourth consecutive decision.

The 23-year-old right-hander worked around a three-error fifth inning — one of which was his after dropping a toss while covering first base — to keep the Nationals scoreless. He’s allowed only one earned run in his last three starts.

Matt McLain staked Burns to a 2-0 lead in the second inning with his fourth home run of the year and the Reds’ first of four on the day.

Bleday added a three-run blast in the fifth to make it 9-0, marking the end of the day for Washington starter Foster Griffin (4-2).

Griffin had allowed only 11 earned runs in eight starts for a 2.12 ERA before surrendering nine in 4 1/3 innings against the Reds.

Bleday's two-run homer in the seventh was his sixth of the season, upping the lead to 11-0 and marking the third multi-homer game of his career. He added a bloop single as part of a four-run eighth inning against Washington outfielder-turned-pitcher Joey Wiemer, who also surrendered a three-run homer to Dane Myers.

Burns received some highlight-reel help from his outfielders to help hold Washington scoreless, with Spencer Steer making a sliding catch in left field to strand a runner on second in the third inning. And Myers made a diving catch in center to end the fifth with runners on the corners.

Steer went 2 for 3 with three runs scored, and Elly De La Cruz doubled and singled for his sixth consecutive multi-hit game, which is tied for the longest streak since 1900 by a Cincinnati switch hitter.

The Nationals’ lone run came on a wild pitch by Lucas Mey in the eighth.

The victory extended the Reds’ run of consecutive home series without being swept to 39, their longest since setting a franchise record with 52 in a row from 2011-13.

Nationals: Zack Littell (1-4, 6.94) will face Baltimore on Friday in Washington.

Reds: Andrew Abbott (2-2, 4.17) will pitch Friday in Cleveland.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB

Cincinnati Reds' JJ Bleday (22) reacts after hitting a three-run home run during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals in Cincinnati, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ben Jackson)

Washington Nationals pitcher Zak Kent throws during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Cincinnati Reds in Cincinnati, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ben Jackson)

Cincinnati Reds' Matt McLain (9) celebrates his two-run home run with his teammates during the second inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals in Cincinnati, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ben Jackson)

Cincinnati Reds' JJ Bleday (22) hits a three-run home run during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals in Cincinnati, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ben Jackson)

Cincinnati Reds pitcher Chase Burns throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals in Cincinnati, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ben Jackson)

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal immigration court in Lower Manhattan has come to represent the Trump administration’s deportation campaign in New York City, with agents carrying out chaotic and sometimes violent arrests in the hallway as migrants leave hearings.

Now the court is serving as a front in a different kind of battle: one of the city’s most closely watched congressional races.

In the Democratic primary between incumbent U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman and former city Comptroller Brad Lander — for a district so solidly blue that the June primary is considered its deciding election — both candidates have made the Trump administration's treatment of migrants at 26 Federal Plaza a feature of their campaigns, but with decidedly different approaches.

Goldman — an heir to the Levi Strauss denim fortune and former prosecutor who was lead counsel for President Donald Trump’s first impeachment — has approached the topic with a lawyerly bent that leverages the power of his office.

He sued the administration to open immigration detention centers to members of Congress, conducts oversight visits and turned his office across the street into what he's called a triage center that connects immigrants with advocacy groups and legal services that has, his campaign said, helped more than 30 people get released from federal custody.

After a recent visit, Goldman credited his oversight work as a reason conditions at a holding facility inside the building have improved.

“What you see from our multipronged approach is the way that I push back, which is not performative, but it is substantive,” he told The Associated Press outside 26 Federal Plaza after he toured the detention center that is closed to the public.

Meanwhile, Lander — a progressive city government stalwart who is running with the support of Mayor Zohran Mamdani — has acted as protester and court observer, watching hearings and attempting to accompany immigrants out of the building past masked federal agents.

His efforts have gotten him arrested twice, with the most recent case headed to a trial scheduled to take place just before the primary.

“I would characterize his oversight function as strongly worded letters," Lander told AP when asked about Goldman's approach. “And my oversight function is: Show up with hundreds of your neighbors and bear witness and accompany people and demand access and stay until they give it to you or they arrest you.”

Lander's first arrest happened last year when he linked arms with a person authorities were attempting to detain in the hallway outside the court. Lander was running for mayor at the time, and the arrest gave his campaign a jolt of excitement at a time when Mamdani and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo were considered the front-runners in the race.

A few months later, after losing the mayoral primary but not long before launching his congressional campaign, Lander was arrested again during a large protest at the building and hit with a misdemeanor obstruction charge.

But instead of accepting a deal that would have made the case go away in six months, Lander instead opted to go to trial. He said the case would extract information about the federal government's immigration enforcement efforts at the building during a tense period that predates Goldman's oversight visits.

Goldman dismissed Lander's efforts as performative.

"I don't understand why someone would reject a dismissal of a case so that he can have a public trial, ostensibly to ask for information that I could provide him whenever he wanted because I have the answers from doing my oversight,” he said.

This week, Lander returned to 26 Federal Plaza to sit in on hearings. But just before entering the building, his team got word that federal agents were lingering outside an immigration hearing at a different federal courtroom in a building across the street. He raced over and eventually found the agents, who were wearing masks and milling around in the court's waiting room.

“The challenge is trying to figure out who they're going to arrest,” Lander said, popping out of the hearing, where he sat in a back row and took notes. After a while, the agents walked away from the hearing room, down a hallway and exited the floor. It was not clear why they left.

“Maybe we have different styles," Lander said of his opponent after the agents departed. He later went back across the street and filmed a campaign video in front of 26 Federal Plaza.

FILE - Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., left, speaks to the federal agents at the Jacob K. Javits federal building, June 18, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)

FILE - New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and FBI agents outside federal immigration court, June 17, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova, File)

FILE - Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol, July 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, file)

Candidate for U.S. Congress Brad Lander appears outside a Federal Immigration Courtroom, in New York, Monday, May 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)