BALTIMORE (AP) — James McCann had a two-out, two-run single in the ninth inning and the Baltimore Orioles emerged from a five-hour rain delay to beat the Kansas City Royals 4-3 on Wednesday night. Baltimore trailed 3-0 in the eighth before scoring twice against the Kansas City bullpen, which wasted a masterful performance by starter Cole Ragans. It was 3-2 in the ninth when Royals closer Will Smith (0-2) walked Ryan Mountcastle and gave up a single to Anthony Santander. After a sacrifice bunt, an intentional walk to load the bases and a strikeout, McCann lined a single into left to end it. The deciding matchup in the three-game series was supposed to start at 1:05 p.m., but didn’t get under way until early evening.
BALTIMORE (AP) — Fans who showed up for an afternoon baseball game at Camden Yards ended up waiting until early evening before the first pitch was finally thrown. There are rain delays, and then there are rain delays that last about as long as a doubleheader. The Baltimore Orioles and Kansas City Royals, as well as a couple thousand patient fans, endured a five-hour wait Wednesday before the game got under way. This was Kansas City’s lone scheduled visit to Baltimore this year. The fans waited. And waited. And waited some more as the rain kept on coming.
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Kyle Higashioka caught two baserunners stealing and homered in the same inning to help Joe Musgrove and the San Diego Padres beat the St. Louis Cardinals 3-2 and avoid a three-game sweep. According to Elias Sports Bureau, Higashioka became the sixth catcher since 1961 to catch multiple runners stealing and hit a home run in the same inning. Higashioka was one of five players obtained from the New York Yankees on Dec. 6 for Juan Soto and Trent Grisham. He was making just his second start of the season.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice says he is taking “full responsibility” for his part in a wreck involving speeding sports cars in Dallas. The chain-reaction crash on a Dallas highway Saturday ultimately involved six vehicles and resulted in minor injuries to four people. Rice was leasing a Lamborghini that police say was speeding along with a Corvette on the North Central Expressway when the crash occurred. Police have not said whether Rice was driving or provided information about the other people involved. The occupants of the vehicles left the scene without providing information or checking to see whether anyone needed medical attention.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Voter rejection of a stadium sales tax plan for the Kansas City Royals and Chiefs has raised questions about what happens next. They're not the first teams to face such questions. Public finance professor Geoffrey Propheter, of the University of Colorado Denver, has tracked stadium referenda. Since 1990, he found voters approved 35 stadium plans and defeated 22. Some teams move after voters reject stadium subsidies, but that's rare. More often, teams regroup and eventually win public funding for stadiums. Many teams sidestep voters altogether by getting approval straight from local or state lawmakers.
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — The Buffalo Bills have agreed to trade their top receiving threat, Stefon Diggs, to the Houston Texans. The Bills acquired the Texans’ second-round pick in the 2025 draft, which Houston acquired in a trade with Minnesota. Houston also acquired Buffalo’s sixth-round pick in this year’s draft, and a fifth-rounder in 2025. Diggs’ departure from Buffalo leaves quarterback Josh Allen without his favorite target, and breaks up a tandem that has re-written the team’s passing records since the receiver’s arrival in a trade with Minnesota in March 2020. For the Texans, Diggs gives the offense another playmaker to team with Nico Collins and Tank Dell.
DORAL, Fla. (AP) — Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau will be the in the same place next week, when they head to Augusta National for the Masters. They’re saying the same things this week, albeit a golf world apart. Sounding an alarm going into the year’s first major, McIlroy and DeChambeau were among players from both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf League on Wednesday speaking out — perhaps a bit more forcefully than before — on a need for the game to somehow reunite or risk further eroding its fanbase.
GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — The financial fates of college basketball and football will have an outsized impact on America’s ability to field successful Olympic teams beyond this summer’s Paris Games. NIL compensation, potential player salaries, conference realignment, TV deals and tournament expansion can all have an effect. Hundreds of non-revenue sports programs on campus feed the U.S. Olympic teams and if they need to make cuts, it will likely affect how well America does at the games.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Fox Sports and AEG will launch a new postseason college basketball tournament next year. The College Basketball Crown will be a 16-team tournament that will take place March 31 through April 6, 2025, in Las Vegas. The games will take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena and T-Mobile Arena. Teams that did not qualify for the NCAA Tournament will be eligible. The Big Ten, Big 12 and Big 12— whose games are carried on Fox — will each have two automatic entries into the tournament. The additional teams will be selected by a committee.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shohei Ohtani hit his first home run for the Los Angeles Dodgers, a solo drive in the seventh inning in a 5-4 win over the San Francisco Giants that finished a three-game sweep. Playing his ninth game for his new team, Ohtani pulled a 93.2 mph sinker from left-hander Taylor Rogers on the upper, outer portion of the strike zone into the right-center field pavilion. The home run came in the 41st plate appearance for the two-time MVP, who left the Los Angeles Angels after last season as a free agent and agreed to a record $700 million, 10-year contract with the Dodgers.
THURSDAY SCORES
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Detroit at N-Y Mets 3:40 p.m. (Postponed)
Atlanta at Chi White Sox 4:10 p.m. (Postponed)
Final L.A. Angels 10 Miami 2
Final Minnesota 7 Milwaukee 3
Final N.Y. Yankees 6 Arizona 5
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Final Texas 4 Tampa Bay 1
Final Baltimore 4 Kansas City 3
Final Boston 1 Oakland 0
Final Cleveland 8 Seattle 0
Final Houston 8 Toronto 0
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Final Cincinnati 4 Philadelphia 1
Final San Diego 3 St. Louis 2
Final Washington 5 Pittsburgh 3
Final Chicago Cubs 9 Colorado 8
Final L.A. Dodgers 5 San Francisco 4
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Final Portland 89 Charlotte 86
Final L.A. Lakers 125 Washington 120
Final Atlanta 121 Detroit 113
Final Boston 135 Oklahoma City 100
Final Brooklyn 115 Indiana 111
Final Minnesota 133 Toronto 85
Final Memphis 111 Milwaukee 101
Final Phoenix 122 Cleveland 101
Final Orlando 117 New Orleans 108
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
Final Tampa Bay 4 Toronto 1
Final N-Y Rangers 4 New Jersey 3
Final Los Angeles 5 Seattle 2
Final Dallas 5 Edmonton 0