The Chicago Cubs battered San Diego to the tune of a 23-3 score that would have seemed more appropriate for an old Bears-Chargers matchup.
Then, in their very next game, they lost to St. Louis 17-1.
The Cubs have been a tough team to figure out this season. By May 9 they'd already had two separate 10-game winning streaks and were 15 games over .500. Then a week later they began a 10-game losing streak. Chicago is now 10 games over .500 but trails the Milwaukee Brewers by six games atop the NL Central.
On Wednesday, Dansby Swanson hit three home runs with eight RBIs as the Cubs produced their most runs at home since 1977. San Diego catcher Rodolfo Duran pitched the final two innings, allowing eight runs.
After a day off, Chicago looked like a completely different team Friday, when David Peterson allowed 10 earned runs in 3 2/3 innings against the Cardinals.
Perhaps it was simply a case of Chicago facing two opponents heading in different directions. The blowout loss Wednesday was part of an eight-game losing streak for the Padres. Meanwhile, the Cardinals took two of three at Wrigley Field and have won five of their last seven overall.
The Cubs have been one of baseball's better offensive teams despite a quiet season from new addition Alex Bregman. Pete Crow-Armstrong has 19 homers, 23 steals and a .910 OPS.
Crow-Armstrong is tied for the major league lead in homers plus stolen bases with 42. Which player is he tied with, and who led the majors in that stat last year?
The Cubs lead the majors with 10 walk-off victories this season, and the crosstown White Sox are second with seven. But two of the biggest walk-off wins this week came against Chicago.
Brayan Rocchio hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to give Cleveland a 6-5 victory over the White Sox on Thursday night. Then Khalil Watson hit a game-winning RBI single the following night in the 10th for a 4-3 triumph.
The first-place White Sox have been one of the game's biggest stories this year, but even after Chicago took the last two games of the four-game set, Cleveland is only a game behind in the AL Central.
Eury Pérez pitched seven perfect innings, then was pulled by Miami manager Clayton McCullough on Sunday. The move nearly blew up in McCullough's face, but the Marlins held on to beat the Athletics 9-8 after almost squandering an 8-0 lead.
Part of McCullough's explanation was that he was thinking long term, with the Marlins hoping to play beyond the regular season. And it probably is time for the rest of baseball to take Miami seriously as a playoff contender. The Marlins are percentage points behind St. Louis for the third wild card, and they have the second-best run differential in the NL East.
Pérez has allowed two runs in 17 innings since returning from a leg injury last month.
The Houston Astros rallied from a 7-2 deficit to beat the Tampa Bay Rays 10-8 on Saturday. Yordan Alvarez hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to win it. That snapped a nine-game winning streak by the Rays, who now lead the New York Yankees by four games atop the AL East.
Houston is 45-47 but just 2 1/2 games out of first place in the AL West and one game out of a wild card.
Bobby Witt Jr. has 12 home runs and 30 steals.
Last year's leader was Juan Soto (43 homers, 38 steals).
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Chicago Cubs' Dansby Swanson, right, celebrates with Michael Conforto, left, and Justin Dean after hitting a grand slam during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres in Chicago, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia unleashed waves of missiles and drones at Ukraine early Monday, killing at least 19 people in attacks that exposed widening gaps in country’s air defenses more than four years into Moscow's full-scale invasion, authorities said.
All of the ballistic missiles launched by Russia struck their targets, underscoring Kyiv’s need for more U.S.-made Patriot interceptor missiles — a point Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will likely reiterate at a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, this week.
Thirteen people were killed in the capital, Kyiv, which was Russia's main target, and 56 were injured, according to administrative head Tymur Tkachenko. Another six people were killed in the wider Kyiv region and 21 were inured, according to Mykola Kalashnyk, the head of the regional administration, and other emergency officials.
Emergency workers searched for survivors in the rubble of residential high-rises in two locations that suffered direct hits.
Moscow has stepped up strikes on Kyiv in retaliation for Ukraine’s recent long-range strikes, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Those attacks have caused severe fuel shortages and put pressure on President Vladimir Putin.
On Thursday, a Russian strike killed 31 people in Kyiv, the deadliest attack in the capital this year.
Ukraine’s advances in drone technology have given it an edge in recent months, analysts and Western officials say, striking supply routes behind the front line, stripping the Russian army of momentum on the battlefield and slowing its advance.
But Russia is now exploiting a different kind of momentum: vulnerabilities in Ukraine’s air defenses, which remain heavily reliant on the Patriot missile systems to intercept ballistic missiles it can rarely shoot down. The war in the Middle East has strained the global supply of Patriot interceptors, already produced in limited numbers — a shortage now felt keenly in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired 351 drones and 68 missiles overnight, targeting mainly Kyiv, and all 29 ballistic missiles struck their targets.
“To intercept ballistics, we need the means for interception,” air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said on national television. “Russians are certainly using the fact that there is a serious deficit of interceptor missiles now, in Ukraine and the world.”
Ahead of the NATO summit in Turkey, Zelenskyy said on X that Ukrainian forces had performed well against drones and cruise missiles but not against ballistic missiles — a shortfall he blamed on insufficient supplies of interceptors. He urged U.S. and European partners at the summit to bolster Ukraine’s air defense and protect civilians.
“As long as Patriot missiles remain in our allies’ stockpiles, Russia is only encouraged to keep ‘vanquishing’ residential buildings. The United States and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror,” he said in a statement following the attack.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Russia is deliberately ramping up ballistic missile attacks on a scale not seen before, exploiting the acute shortage of Patriot interceptors. “Fewer such missiles are produced worldwide each month than the enemy fires at Ukraine in that same period,” he said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the attack targeted weapons factories in Kyiv, including sites it said produce drones, armored vehicles and missiles, as well as facilities repairing air defense systems and fuel and energy infrastructure in the capital and surrounding region. The claims could not be independently verified.
Russia’s attacks have repeatedly hit civilian areas. More than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war, according to the United Nations.
“These are residential buildings. Places where people slept and lived their ordinary lives,” Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.
A residential building in the Podilskyi district partially collapsed, he said. In the Darnytsia district, several multistory buildings were damaged and people were believed to be buried in the rubble.
In Kyiv's suburb of Vyshneve, about 600 residents were evacuated due to the risk of unexploded munitions, Ukraine's Emergency Service said.
Khrystyna Piatetska, 20, a resident of Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district, said she began screaming after the first strike, which was followed by a second blast that blew out the windows in her apartment building.
The lights went out, a burning smell filled the air and the stairwell was thick with smoke, she said.
“When we were leaving the building, bodies were lying there,” Piatetska said. “When we got downstairs, cars started exploding, and we came out from under the rubble straight into the fire.”
Halina Ivanivna, 61, said she was awakened by the first strike about 2 a.m. Moments later, her apartment building began collapsing around her.
“Everything was falling down,” she said. Water poured through the building as smoke filled the air while emergency crews rushed to evacuate residents.
About five minutes after the initial impact, a second strike hit, she said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses downed 519 Ukrainian drones overnight.
An energy provider in Russian-held Crimea reported a blackout across the peninsula. The Moscow-appointed head of the city of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said Ukrainian attacks cut power early Monday that was restored with backup equipment.
Ukraine’s military confirmed it struck several Russian energy and military facilities used to supply Russia’s armed forces with fuel and support its war efforts.
In the Russian city of Yaroslavl, two people were wounded in an attack in which over 70 Ukrainian drones were downed, according to regional Gov. Mikhail Yavrayev. He didn’t say if any facilities were damaged, but the Astra online news outlet said they caused a fire at an oil refinery.
Ukrainian drone attack on the Leningrad region north of Moscow damaged unspecified infrastructure at the Luga training ground, as well as in the areas of Baltic Sea ports of Ust-Luga and Vysotsk, Gov. Alexander Drozdenko said.
Several Ukrainian drones attacked a northern industrial hub in the city of Omsk, regional Gov. Vitaly Khotsenko said, but provided no other details.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Frightened by explosions, a cat cuddles up to its owner during search and rescue works at the damaged residential building following Russia's missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
The damaged apartment interior in the ruined apartment building following Russia's missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
A woman carries her cat out of a damaged multistory apartment building following a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Local residents walk amid debris following a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Local residents look out of the balcony at a building damaged by Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Emergency workers carry an injured person following Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
Rescuers work the scene of a building damaged by Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Rescuers work the scene of a building damaged by Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
The damaged apartment interior in the ruined building following Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Rescuers work the scene of a building damaged by Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Rescuers work the scene of a building damaged by Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
