PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Kyle Manzardo hit a pinch-hit homer off Phillies closer Jhoan Duran in the ninth inning to preserve a terrific outing for starter Gavin Williams and lead the Cleveland Guardians to a 1-0 win over Philadelphia on Friday night.
Cade Smith worked a scoreless ninth for his 19th save in a game that needed just 2 hours, 5 minutes.
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Philadelphia Phillies' Cristopher Sánchez pitches during the first inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians Friday, May 22, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Trea Turner catches a fly out by Cleveland Guardians' Petey Halpin during the sixth inning of a baseball game Friday, May 22, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Philadelphia Phillies' Cristopher Sánchez pitches during the third inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians Friday, May 22, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Philadelphia Phillies' Bryce Harper hits a double against Cleveland Guardians pitcher Gavin Williams during the first inning of a baseball game Friday, May 22, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Cleveland Guardians' Gavin Williams pitches during the first inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies Friday, May 22, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Cristopher Sánchez and Williams matched up in a classic pitchers' duel where each tossed eight shutout innings in front of 38,092 fans on a rainy night. They were the first opposing starters to each pitch at least eight scoreless innings since Miami's Ryan Weathers and Detroit's Reese Olson on May 14, 2024.
Manzardo made Williams (7-3) a winner when the left-handed hitter launched a homer the opposite way to left off Duran (1-2).
Sánchez tossed four-hit ball over eight innings and struck out six. He threw 96 pitches and lowered his ERA to a staggering 1.62 on the season.
Coming off his first shutout of the season, Sánchez ran his scoreless streak to 37 2/3 innings, which moved him past Cliff Lee (34 innings) into second place and within striking distance of the franchise record for consecutive scoreless innings. Grover Alexander tossed 41 straight innings in one stretch in the 1911 season.
Williams was just as stout. He struck out 11 and walked none.
He made NL batting champion Trea Turner look bad on flailed check-swing on a sweeper for his ninth strikeout. He then froze Kyle Schwarber, back in the lineup after missing three games with an illness, on a 97.5 mph sinker for his 10th strikeout.
Sánchez and the Phillies avoided a scary moment when third baseman Alec Bohm crashed hard into catcher J.T. Realmuto as they circled Petey Halpin's foul pop. Bohm made the catch and Realmuto stayed down on one knee for a bit until he stood up, winked at Bohm to signify all was good and stayed in the game.
Realmuto even singled off Williams with one out in the eighth inning. Williams then retired the left-handed rookie Justin Crawford to ground into an inning-ending double play.
The Guardians sent RHP Slade Cecconi (3-4, 5.16 ERA) to the mound against Phillies RHP Zack Wheeler (3-0, 1.99 ERA). Heavy rain in the forecast could wipe this one out early.
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Philadelphia Phillies' Cristopher Sánchez pitches during the first inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians Friday, May 22, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Trea Turner catches a fly out by Cleveland Guardians' Petey Halpin during the sixth inning of a baseball game Friday, May 22, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Philadelphia Phillies' Cristopher Sánchez pitches during the third inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians Friday, May 22, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Philadelphia Phillies' Bryce Harper hits a double against Cleveland Guardians pitcher Gavin Williams during the first inning of a baseball game Friday, May 22, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Cleveland Guardians' Gavin Williams pitches during the first inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies Friday, May 22, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
BUNIA, Congo (AP) — Authorities in northeastern Congo banned funeral wakes and gatherings of more than 50 people Friday in an effort to curb a rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak in a region where medical workers have struggled with a lack of resources and pushback from angry residents.
The World Health Organization said that the outbreak now poses a “very high" risk for Congo — up from a previous categorization of “high” — but that the risk of the disease spreading globally remains low.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 82 cases and seven deaths have been confirmed in Congo, but that the outbreak is believed to be “much larger."
There is no available vaccine for the Bundibugyo virus, which spread undetected for weeks in Congo's Ituri Province following the first known death while authorities tested for another, more common, Ebola virus and came up negative. There are now 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths, though more are expected as surveillance expands.
“We are trying to catch up,” Congo Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner told the AP. “It is a race against the clock."
Supplies were being rushed to Ituri in the northeastern corner of the country, where nearly a million people have been displaced by armed conflicts over mineral resources. Ramping up contact tracing is a priority, Kayikwamba Wagner said.
In the provincial capital of Bunia, AP reporters saw empty emergency treatment centers, and doctors in the nearby town of Bambu using expired medical masks while tending to suspected Ebola patients.
The provincial government said Friday it was temporarily banning wakes and gatherings of more than 50 people. It said funerals must be conducted in strict compliance with health protocols. The authorities also required journalists to obtain a permit to report on the outbreak, impeding their work.
The illness also has been reported in two Congolese provinces to the south of Ituri — North Kivu and South Kivu, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls many key cities, including Goma and Bukavu, where the rebels reported two cases.
The group said Friday it was creating a crisis team to fight the outbreak.
Kayikwamba Wagner said having the illness in rebel-held areas was alarming because “M23 is, despite whatever ambitions they may have, thoroughly ill equipped" to fight the disease.
She said the Congo government and rebels were not communicating on the outbreak.
The efforts of health officials and aid groups have met with pushback from communities due to misinformation or situations where medical policy has clashed with local customs such as burial rites.
On Thursday, an Ebola treatment center in Rwampara was set on fire by youths who were angered when they were blocked from retrieving the body of a friend who apparently had died of Ebola, according to witnesses and police.
The dangerous work of burying suspected victims is being managed wherever possible by authorities, because the bodies can be highly contagious and lead to further spread when they are prepared for burial or when people gather for funerals.
Julienne Lusenge, president of Women’s Solidarity for Inclusive Peace and Development, a local aid group, said the population’s anger is mostly due to misinformation. “We have lived through years and years of conflict and hardship so rumors spread easily,” she said.
She said some churches have told their congregations the outbreak is fake and that divine protection makes medical care unnecessary.
In the Ituri province mining town of Mongbwalu where the outbreak is believed to have originated, Lokana Moro Faustin lost his 16-year-old daughter to the disease and bemoaned the fact that he was not able to give her a proper goodbye because of Ebola restrictions.
“At first, we thought it was malaria. But then came vomiting, a high fever, nosebleeds, and bloody diarrhea,” he said, grief-stricken.
The teenager died on May 15 and her body was taken from the hospital by specialized teams and taken directly to the cemetery for a secure burial. Faustin was not able to say goodbye because he was in self-isolation, and it pained him to have his daughter buried by people who were not family.
In Bunia, coffin workshop manager Christian Djakisa said demand has soared since the outbreak began. “We're here every hour making coffins,” he said.
The United Nations said Friday it released $60 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund to accelerate the response in Congo and in the region.
The U.S. has pledged $23 million in funding to bolster the response in Congo and Uganda, and said it would also fund the establishment of up to 50 Ebola treatment clinics in the affected regions.
Lusenge said her group’s small hospital near in Bunia lacks basic protective equipment, exposing nurses and doctors to possible infection, she said. “We only have hand sanitizer and a few masks for the nurses, but we need much more than that," Lusenge said.
Public health officials say that a person infected with Ebola generally passes the virus along to one to two other people — which is less contagious than measles, whooping cough and chickenpox, in which one person can infect around a dozen others.
But researchers note that transmission rates have varied in past Ebola outbreaks, and they are still trying to determine how contagious the Bundibugyo virus is.
Both the WHO and Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believe the outbreak is larger than the cases reported so far.
The region’s already-weak health infrastructure and surveillance capacity has been further weakened by international aid cuts, experts say. The International Rescue Committee said it had to stop its surveillance activities in three out of five areas in Ituri over the last year because of funding cuts.
Armed conflict in the region further complicates efforts to handle the crisis. To get from Bunia to Mongbwalu, aid groups have to brace for potential attacks from armed groups.
“The outbreak can still be contained but the window for action is narrow,” Gabriela Arenas from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Friday.
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Pronczuk reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Constant Same Bagalwa in Bunia, Congo; Jean Yves Kamale in Kinshasa, Congo; Jonathan Poet in Philadelphia; Mark Banchereau and Wilson McMakin in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.
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David Zaki, 19, makes a coffin at a carpentry shop in Bunia, Congo, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)
Djakisa Christian, 18, a funeral home manager, sits in front of coffins for sale at his shop in Bunia, Congo, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)
Charred hospital beds stand in smoldering Ebola treatment center in Rwampara, Congo, Thursday, May 21, 2026, after it was set fire by people angry at being stopped from retrieving a body, according to a witness and police. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
Flames and smoke rise from an Ebola treatment center in Rwampara, Congo, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
Medical staff carry an Ebola patient to a treatment center in Rwampara, Congo, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)
A person is wearing a protective face mask in front of the WHO logo, during the media regarding the epidemic of Ebola disease, during a press conference at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, May 22, 2026. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP)
