Pancakes with the Potters

EAST LIVERPOOL — Pancakes with the Potters will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Sunday at The Vault.

East Liverpool boys basketball players and coaches will be serving food on the buffet line.

Cost is $12 for two pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage + bacon and fresh fruit.

All proceeds are to benefit the East Liverpool boys basketball program.

Martinez, Ramirez hit back-to-back homers

HOUSTON (AP) — Jose Ramirez homered for a third straight game, Angel Martinez also went deep and the Cleveland Guardians got a 4-2 win over the Houston Astros on Wednesday night to complete a three-game sweep.

It’s the first time the Guardians, who entered the series on a 10-game skid, have won three in a row since a four-game winning streak from May 21-24.

Slade Cecconi (4-4) allowed five hits and two runs with a career-best nine strikeouts in 7-plus innings for the win. Paul Sewald pitched a scoreless ninth for his second save.

Martinez homered for a second straight at-bat with his shot to the Crawford Boxes with one out in the first inning. His grand slam with two outs in the 10th inning Tuesday night lifted Cleveland to a 10-6 win.

Four pitches after Martinez’s homer Wednesday, Ramirez also connected off Brandon Walter (1-2) to make it 2-0. Walter settled in after that, retiring the next 17 batters, with seven strikeouts before Bennett Sousa took over to start the seventh.

Ramirez and Carlos Santana hit consecutive singles with no outs in the inning before David Fry walked to load the bases. Johnathan Rodriguez then singled to score two and extend the lead to 4-0.

Ramirez, who dropped out of next week’s All-Star game Wednesday to rehab a nagging Achilles injury, has four homers and seven RBIs this month.

The Astros had managed just four singles when Taylor Trammell walked with no outs in the eighth and scored on a double by Mauricio Dubon that cut the lead to 4-1. There were two outs in the inning when Jose Altuve’s RBI double made it 4-2.

The AL West-leading Astros went 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position.

Giants catcher makes history

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Patrick Bailey’s entrance into the Major League Baseball record books on Tuesday night began with a tight swing that sent a fastball from Phillies reliever Jordan Romano into Triples Alley.

It ended with Bailey chugging his way around third base then getting mobbed at home plate by his teammates after becoming the third catcher in major league history to hit a game-ending, inside-the-park home run.

The three-run shot had an exit velocity of 103.4 mph and bounced off the brick wall at the Giants waterfront ballpark. It ricocheted back toward center field as Nick Castellanos and Brandon Marsh gave chase.

Bailey said his initial thought was to get a triple before he saw third base coach Matt Williams waving him in.

“Off the ball I just knew I got it well,” Bailey said. “I saw it was towards Triples Alley and I was like, ‘Oh I gotta go. I at least gotta get to third.’ Once I saw the bounce, I was like ‘All right, just don’t fall over.'”

It’s the ninth time this season that the Giants have won in their final at-bat, tops in the majors.

It was also the first time in nearly nine years that a player has hit a walk-off, inside-the-park home run in the majors. Cleveland’s Tyler Naquin was the last to do so on Aug. 19, 2016.

The three-run home run lifted the Giants to a 4-3 victory that had the Oracle Park crowd roaring as Bailey crossed the plate.

NFL union appealing ruling in collusion case

NEW YORK (AP) — The NFL Players Association is appealing an arbitrator’s ruling regarding collusion by owners over quarterback salaries, a person with knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The person, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity because it’s a legal matter, said the appeal was filed on Tuesday and the union has been having ongoing discussions with its executive council about the matter. There’s no timeline for a decision that’ll be made by a standing appeals panel made up of three people.

On Jan. 14, arbitrator Christopher Droney ruled there wasn’t sufficient evidence of collusion by owners in contract negotiations with quarterbacks after the Cleveland Browns gave QB Deshaun Watson a record $230 million fully guaranteed contract.

Any attempt to collude to keep salaries down violates the collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and the union.