ATLANTA (AP) — Elly De La Cruz hit his 30th homer, Héctor Rodríguez and rookie Carlos Jorge also went deep, and the Cincinnati Reds rallied from an early deficit to beat the NL East champion Atlanta Braves 7-6 on Thursday night.
With the loss, Atlanta secured the No. 3 seed for the National League playoffs, behind Milwaukee and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Braves (93-66) will host a best-of-three Wild Card Series starting Tuesday.
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Cincinnati Reds outfielders Carlos Jorge, left, Héctor Rodríguez, center, and JJ Bleday, right, celebrate after their team defeated the Atlanta Braves in a baseball game, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)
Cincinnati Reds' Sal Stewart (27) is caught stealing by Atlanta Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies during the fifth inning of a baseball game, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)
Cincinnati Reds pitcher Brady Singer, center, flips over first baseman Sal Stewart (27) while fielding a single hit by Atlanta Braves' Ozzie Albies (1) during the first inning of a baseball game, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)
Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuña Jr. runs from first base to score on a double by Michael Harris II, against the Cincinnati Reds during the first inning of a baseball game, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)
Cincinnati Reds outfielders Carlos Jorge, left, Héctor Rodríguez, center, and JJ Bleday, right, celebrate after their team defeated the Atlanta Braves in a baseball game, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)
Cincinnati Reds' Elly De La Cruz, left, and Eugenio Suárez (28) celebrate after defeating the Atlanta Braves during the ninth inning of a baseball game, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)
Rodríguez's two-run homer in the sixth inning off AJ Smith-Shawver (0-3) made it 7-6. De La Cruz extended his career high with a shot to right field in the third, and he needs one stolen base for the fourth 30/30 season in Reds history.
Jorge led off the game with his first career homer.
Connor Phillips (2-0), the third of six Cincinnati pitchers, got four outs. Emilio Pagán worked the ninth for his 25th save.
Atlanta scored four runs in the bottom of the first, but Cincinnati quickly rallied against Tyler Mahle. The right-hander gave up five runs in five innings in his final start before the playoffs. It was his worst outing since joining the Braves from San Francisco at the trade deadline. He gave up two runs or fewer in each of his previous eight starts with Atlanta.
Braves star Ronald Acuña Jr. returned after missing one game with a bone bruise on his shin, racing around at full speed to score from first on a double in the first inning. He was 2 for 5 with a stolen base.
Reds starter Brady Singer lasted three innings and gave up five runs on seven hits. Austin Riley homered against him in the third.
Reds: Conclude the season with a three-game series at Toronto. LHP Nick Lodolo (3-6, 5.04 ERA) will oppose Blue Jays RHP José Soriano (12-8, 3.72) on Friday.
Braves: Have not announced a starter for Friday's series opener at Miami. RHP Eury Pérez (7-11, 4.14) starts for the Marlins.
See AP’s full MLB coverage here
Cincinnati Reds' Sal Stewart (27) is caught stealing by Atlanta Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies during the fifth inning of a baseball game, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)
Cincinnati Reds pitcher Brady Singer, center, flips over first baseman Sal Stewart (27) while fielding a single hit by Atlanta Braves' Ozzie Albies (1) during the first inning of a baseball game, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)
Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuña Jr. runs from first base to score on a double by Michael Harris II, against the Cincinnati Reds during the first inning of a baseball game, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)
Cincinnati Reds outfielders Carlos Jorge, left, Héctor Rodríguez, center, and JJ Bleday, right, celebrate after their team defeated the Atlanta Braves in a baseball game, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)
Cincinnati Reds' Elly De La Cruz, left, and Eugenio Suárez (28) celebrate after defeating the Atlanta Braves during the ninth inning of a baseball game, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Civil rights attorney Ben Crump released information from a forensic examination of Nolan Wells’ cellphone as well as details of the official autopsy Thursday, just days after a Mississippi grand jury said it found no evidence of criminal conduct in the teen's death.
Attorneys representing the 18-year-old Black college student's family have called for transparency, asking that the grand jury investigative materials and the official autopsy report be publicly released. Crump and his team discussed the contents of the cellphone analysis, but they did not release a full report of all the messages sent and received in the days leading up to and the day of Wells' death.
The grand jury had access to that information, including 282 pages of Snapchat conversations, when it convened last week, according to the panel's report and Crump. Crump said the forensic examiner was able to track messages received and sent and tie them to the location of Wells' phone from the day before he went missing all the way up to when his family got the phone back.
“The messaging, as I said, was very telling … some of his own friends were concerned about (how) people on Horn Island can be racist,” Crump said Thursday.
Wells' family and their legal team have slammed the grand jury report and have been working to keep the investigation open and active. They've asked for federal authorities to look into the events surrounding Wells' death. His body was found two days after he went with a group of mostly white friends on a boat trip to a barrier island for a July 4 party.
The high-profile death in a Deep South state with a history of racial tension has sparked rampant speculation and suspicion. State and local officials and several of Wells' white friends who had become the target of that speculation had hoped that the grand jury report would quell critics.
Wells’ parents and their lawyers voiced suspicions after Wells’ friends left the island without him, saying he wanted to stay behind and talk to a girl. Wells’ phone was on the boat that took him to the island, and his family and their attorneys have expressed doubt that he would choose to stay behind without his phone.
Crump said the last text message sent by Wells was July 3 around 8:30 p.m., but that was not unusual given that he and many teenagers communicate primarily on social media, including Snapchat and Instagram.
Andrew Garrett, the forensic examiner who extracted the contents of Wells' phone, said the GPS and other phone data showed that Wells had opened it with his face while it was on the boat around 2:17 p.m. It was then locked and continued to receive messages as it traveled on the boat, then by car and eventually was picked up by his family.
Garrett also said at the news conference Thursday that some snap messages had been deleted. He did not specify whether the senders deleted those messages on their own phones, but he made clear that he could not ascribe intent to those deletions. There was no evidence presented that suggested someone had unlocked Wells' phone after it left the island and before the family got it back.
The Associated Press sent a message to Crump's team seeking clarification Thursday.
A lawyer who represents some of Wells’ friends who have been the subject of speculation and online hate said it was unclear what new information the cellphone report revealed, reiterating that none of his clients were on the boat carrying Wells’ phone.
“They never had the phone,” attorney Edward Paltzik said of his clients.
The grand jury findings attempt to explicitly clear the friends who left the island without Wells from any wrongdoing, including trying to squash several online rumors.
In a statement released after Crump's Thursday news conference, District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath stood by the investigation and said: “Again, if the Crump team genuinely has new information or evidence that Nolan Wells was murdered they should stop playing games and immediately provide it to me.”
The grand jury report said the panel found Wells' death to be “consistent with drowning” and found that he had not been in a fight or altercation while on the island.
Crump and Wells' parents questioned how the panel could determine Wells likely drowned, when both the official and independent autopsies said the cause of death could not be determined.
The state's official autopsy report, which Crump's team received late Wednesday, also said Wells' airways and stomach were empty, which they said raised questions about the grand jury's finding.
“What this means is that there is no water in the stomach, there is no water in the lungs and there is no water in the throat,” Wells' family attorney Liza Park said.
Both the official and independent autopsies noted fresh bruising on Wells' head. A witness testified to the grand jury that he saw Wells slip awkwardly off the side of a boat around 3:30 p.m. on July 4, but that Wells continued to socialize after the fall and didn’t appear injured, the report said. The panel said it couldn’t determine whether the fall caused the bruising, but noted it was not a fatal injury.
FILE - A person holds a picture of Nolan Xavier Wells during a news conference at National Action Network headquarters, Friday, July 10, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
In this photo taken with a smartphone, Ben Crump, right, an attorney for the family of Nolan Wells, speaks at a news conference in Stonecrest, Ga., Thursday, Sept. 22, 2026, accompanied by Wells' parents, Elmore and Christine Wonsley. (AP Photo/Emilie Megnien)
