ST. LOUIS (AP) — José Ramírez had three hits including his 36th home run, drove in two and stole his 40th base as the Cleveland Guardians beat the St. Louis Cardinals 5-1 on Friday night to move closer to the AL Central crown.
“When you watch him play, it’s OK, this guy wants to play, he wants to be the best,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said of Ramírez. “Nothing he does will ever surprise me. He’s capable of great things.”
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Cleveland Guardians' Andres Gimenez (0) celebrates as he rounds the bases past St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Thomas Saggese after hitting a solo home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
St. Louis Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol watches from the dugout during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Cleveland Guardians' Lane Thomas, left, grounds out as St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt handles the throw during the fifth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Cleveland Guardians' Lane Thomas arrives home after hitting a solo home run during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Cleveland Guardians starting pitcher Ben Lively throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Kyle Gibson pauses on the mound after giving up a solo home run to Cleveland Guardians' Jose Ramirez during the fifth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Cleveland Guardians' Jose Ramirez rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Cleveland Guardians' Jose Ramirez rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Ramírez has more goals this season.
“It feels good, but obviously it’s going to feel a lot better if I’m able to hit four more homers for the 40/40,” he said through an interpreter.
Ben Lively (13-9) pitched five innings, allowing just one earned run and three hits while striking out two and walking one. It was his third consecutive start of allowing fewer than two runs.
“A couple times in the past, I’ve kind of chilled out a little bit, thinking I’ve got it figured out a little bit, and bad things happened,” Lively said. “You know what you’re doing, (so) keep going. I’ve got plenty of time in the offseason to think about it.”
Erik Sabrowski gave up two hits in 2 1/3 innings for the first save of his professional career.
Andrés Giménez and Lane Thomas added solo home runs for the Guardians. Thomas, who began his career in St. Louis, hit his first homer at Busch Stadium since Sept. 10, 2020.
The Guardians magic number for the division is now one. The Cardinals’ loss and the Arizona Diamondbacks victory over the Milwaukee Brewers officially eliminated St. Louis from postseason contention for the second consecutive season.
Cardinals starter Kyle Gibson (8-8) allowed four runs (three earned) in six innings. He struck out two and walked three, allowing multiple home runs for just the fifth time in 29 starts.
“Felt really good, (but) we’d like to have two pitches back,” Gibson said.
“Especially against this lineup, I feel like (Gibson) actually navigated it well,” Cardinals manager Oli Marmol said. “You’ve got a ton of lefties in there, a lot of guys that make contact, they’re in the air quite a bit, they don’t swing and miss. He gave us a shot.”
Lars Nootbaar had two hits for the Cardinals, including a popup double to shallow left field in the fourth inning to drive in St. Louis’ run. Thomas Saggese had two hits in his first career start at third base. His fourth inning throwing error allowed Bo Naylor to advance to second base on a single and score on an RBI base hit by Daniel Schneemann.
The Guardians, who locked up a playoff spot on Thursday at home, will clinch the AL Central with one more win or one more loss by the Kansas City Royals.
“(Clinching at home) was really fun, and we should enjoy it, but that doesn’t mean the work stops,” Vogt said. “We have to continue to push all the way through to the end.”
TRAINER’S ROOM
Cardinals: Marmol said the Cardinals are still evaluating how the team will align its pitching rotation over its final eight games of the regular season. RHP Sonny Gray described pitching through undisclosed “lingering things” following his most recent start on Sept. 18.
Guardians: RHP Alex Cobb (right middle finger blister) is “building up volume” before pitching in a game, Vogt said. OF Steven Kwan (mid-back irritation) is eligible to come off the injured list on Tuesday, and Vogt said the team is “targeting” that day for his activation. “Obviously we don’t know what’s going to happen between now and then, but his progression is going well. He’s feeling better every day,” Vogt said. RHP Carlos Carrasco cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Columbus.
UP NEXT
Miles Mikolas (8-11, 5.49) starts for St. Louis in the second game of the series, opposed by Cleveland LHP Matthew Boyd (2-1, 2.52). Mikolas is trying to avoid becoming the first Cardinals pitcher since Kip Wells in 2007 to pitch at least 150 innings with an ERA of 5.50 or higher.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB
Cleveland Guardians' Andres Gimenez (0) celebrates as he rounds the bases past St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Thomas Saggese after hitting a solo home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
St. Louis Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol watches from the dugout during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Cleveland Guardians' Lane Thomas, left, grounds out as St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt handles the throw during the fifth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Cleveland Guardians' Lane Thomas arrives home after hitting a solo home run during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Cleveland Guardians starting pitcher Ben Lively throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Kyle Gibson pauses on the mound after giving up a solo home run to Cleveland Guardians' Jose Ramirez during the fifth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Cleveland Guardians' Jose Ramirez rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Cleveland Guardians' Jose Ramirez rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — Germans on Saturday mourned both the victims and their shaken sense of security after a Saudi doctor intentionally drove into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers, killing at least five people, including a small child, and injuring at least 200 others.
Authorities arrested a 50-year-old man at the site of the attack in Magdeburg on Friday evening and took him into custody for questioning. He has lived in Germany for nearly two decades, practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Magdeburg. officials said.
The governor of the surrounding state of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, told reporters that the death toll rose from two to five and that more than 200 people in total were injured.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that nearly 40 of them "are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them.”
Several German media outlets identified the suspect as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.
Mourners lit candles and placed flowers outside a church near the market on the cold and gloomy day. Several people stopped and cried. A Berlin church choir whose members witnessed a previous Christmas market attack in 2016 sang Amazing Grace, a hymn about God's mercy, offering their prayers and solidarity with the victims.
There were still no answers Saturday as to what caused him to drive into a crowd in the eastern German city of Magdeburg.
Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect shared dozens of tweets and retweets daily focusing on anti-Islam themes, criticizing the religion and congratulating Muslims who left the faith.
He also accused German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he said was the “Islamism of Europe.” Some described him as an activist who helped Saudi women flee their homeland. He has also voiced support for the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Recently, he seemed focused on his theory that German authorities have been targeting Saudi asylum seekers.
Prominent German terrorism expert Peter Neumann said he had yet to come across a suspect in an act of mass violence with that profile.
“After 25 years in this ‘business’ you think nothing could surprise you anymore. But a 50-year-old Saudi ex-Muslim who lives in East Germany, loves the AfD and wants to punish Germany for its tolerance towards Islamists — that really wasn’t on my radar, " Neumann, the director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence at King’s College London, wrote on X.
“As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator, so that as far as we know there is no further danger to the city,” Saxony-Anhalt’s governor, Reiner Haseloff, told reporters. “Every human life that has fallen victim to this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many.”
The violence shocked Germany and the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring a festive event that’s part of a centuries-old German tradition. It prompted several other German towns to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss. Berlin kept its markets open but has increased its police presence at them.
Germany has suffered a string of extremist attacks in recent years, including a knife attack that killed three people and wounded eight at a festival in the western city of Solingen in August.
Magdeburg is a city of about 240,000 people, west of Berlin, that serves as Saxony-Anhalt’s capital. Friday’s attack came eight years after an Islamic extremist drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
Chancellor Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser traveled to Magdeburg on Saturday, and a memorial service is to take place in the city cathedral in the evening. Faeser ordered flags lowered to half-staff at federal buildings across the country.
Verified bystander footage distributed by the German news agency dpa showed the suspect’s arrest at a tram stop in the middle of the road. A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man shouted at him as he lay prone, his head arched up slightly. Other officers swarmed around the suspect and took him into custody.
Thi Linh Chi Nguyen, a 34-year-old manicurist from Vietnam whose salon is located in a mall across from the Christmas market, was on the phone during a break when she heard loud bangs and thought at first they were fireworks. She then saw a car drive through the market at high speed. People screamed and a child was thrown into the air by the car.
Shaking as she described the horror of what she witnessed, she recalled seeing the car bursting out of the market and turning right onto Ernst-Reuter-Allee street and then coming to a standstill at the tram stop where the suspect was arrested.
The number of injured people was overwhelming.
“My husband and I helped them for two hours. He ran back home and grabbed as many blankets as he could find because they didn’t have enough to cover the injured people. And it was so cold," she said.
The market itself was still cordoned off Saturday with red-and-white tape and police vans every 50 meters (about 54 yards). Police with machine pistols guarded every entry to the market.
Some thermal security blankets still lay on the street.
Christmas markets are a German holiday tradition cherished since the Middle Ages, now successfully exported to much of the Western world.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry condemned the attack on X.
Aboubakr reported from Cairo and Gera from Warsaw, Poland.
Two firefighters walk through a cordoned-off area near a Christmas Market, after a car drove into a crowd in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
A damaged car sits with its doors open after a driver plowed into a busy Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, early Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (Hendrik Schmidt/dpa via AP)
Police stand at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, early Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024, after a driver plowed into a group of people at the market late Friday. (Hendrik Schmidt/dpa via AP)
Police stand at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, early Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024, after a driver plowed into a group of people at the market late Friday. (Hendrik Schmidt/dpa via AP)
A damaged car sits with its doors open after a driver plowed into a busy Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, early Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (Hendrik Schmidt/dpa via AP)
Police officers and police emergency vehicles are seen at the Christmas market in Magdeburg after a driver plowed into a busy Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (Matthias Bein/dpa via AP)
Security guards stand in front of a cordoned-off Christmas Market after a car crashed into a crowd of people, in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday early morning, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
A barrier tape and police vehicles are seen in front of the entrance to the Christmas market in Magdeburg after a driver plowed into a busy Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (Sebastian Kahnert/dpa via AP)
The car that was crashed into a crowd of people at the Magdeburg Christmas market is seen following the attack in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday early morning, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
People mourn in front of St. John's Church for the victims of Friday's attack at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (Matthias Bein/dpa via AP)
Police tape cordons-off a Christmas Market, where a car drove into a crowd on Friday evening, in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
A police officer stands guard at at a cordoned-off area near a Christmas Market, where a car drove into a crowd on Friday evening, in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Police officers patrol a cordoned-off area at a Christmas Market, where a car drove into a crowd on Friday evening, in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Security guards stand in front of a cordoned-off Christmas Market after a car crashed into a crowd of people, in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Emergency services work in a cordoned-off area near a Christmas Market, after a car drove into a crowd in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Emergency services work in a cordoned-off area near a Christmas Market, after a car drove into a crowd in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Emergency services work in a cordoned-off area near a Christmas Market, after a car drove into a crowd in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Reiner Haseloff, Minister President of Saxony-Anhalt, center, is flanked by Tamara Zieschang, Minister of the Interior and Sport of Saxony-Anhalt, left, and Simone Borris, Mayor of the City of Magdeburg, at a press conference after a car plowed into a busy outdoor Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (Hendrik Schmidt/dpa via AP)
Emergency services work in a cordoned-off area near a Christmas Market, after a car drove into a crowd in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Emergency services work in a cordoned-off area near a Christmas Market, after a car drove into a crowd in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Emergency services work in a cordoned-off area near a Christmas Market, after a car drove into a crowd in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
A police officer guards at a blocked road near a Christmas Market, after an incident in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Emergency services attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Dörthe Hein/dpa via AP)
Emergency services attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Heiko Rebsch/dpa via AP)
Emergency services attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Heiko Rebsch/dpa via AP)
A police officer guards at a cordoned-off area near a Christmas Market after an incident in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
In this screen grab image from video, special police forces attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Thomas Schulz/dpa via AP)
Reiner Haseloff (M, CDU), Minister President of Saxony-Anhalt, makes a statement after an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Heiko Rebsch/dpa via AP)
A police officer speaks with a man at a cordoned-off area near a Christmas Market after an incident in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
A policeman is seen at the Christmas market where an incident happened in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Heiko Rebsch/dpa via AP)
A firefighter walks through a cordoned-off area near a Christmas Market, after a car drove into a crowd in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Emergency services work in a cordoned-off area near a Christmas Market, after an incident in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
A view of the cordoned-off Christmas market after an incident in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Heiko Rebsch/dpa via AP)
A police officer guards at a blocked road near a Christmas market after an incident in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
The car that was crashed into a crowd of people at the Magdeburg Christmas market is seen following the attack in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday early morning, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Security guards stand in front of a cordoned-off Christmas Market after a car crashed into a crowd of people, in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday early morning, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Security guards stand in front of a cordoned-off Christmas Market after a car crashed into a crowd of people, in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday early morning, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
The car that was crashed into a crowd of people at the Magdeburg Christmas market is seen following the attack in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday early morning, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Forensics work on a damaged car sitting with its doors open after a driver plowed into a busy Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, early Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (Hendrik Schmidt/dpa via AP)
