Yadier Molina has a chance to join the 1,000-RBI club, and Albert Pujols will get another opportunity to honor Willie Mays when the visiting St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants continue their four-game series Friday night.

Molina hit his first home run of the season, a solo shot that produced his 999th career RBI, in a 7-1 Cardinals win in the series opener Thursday.

Pujols was given the night off but likely will get the call in a favorable matchup with Giants right-hander Alex Cobb as the clubs honor Mays, the Hall of Famer whom Pujols passed both in career home runs and hits over the past two seasons. Mays turns 91 on Friday.

The legends communicated via email after Pujols hit homer No. 661 in September of 2020.

“He sent me an email,” Pujols recalled of Mays, who was 89 at the time. “(It) said, ‘What took you so long?'”

The Giants are planning some rotation and roster shuffling in hopes of snapping a season-worst, four-game losing streak.

The Cardinals had expected to see Giants’ Opening Day starter Logan Webb in one of the first two games of the series, but San Francisco manager Gabe Kapler has elected to push his struggling right-hander back to Saturday.

The Giants turned the series opener into a bullpen game, with nine pitchers combining to give up 12 hits, and Friday are expected to start Cobb (1-1, 5.40 ERA) against Cardinals right-hander Jordan Hicks (1-2, 3.65).

As they await the season debuts of starting infielders Tommy La Stella (surgery on left Achilles) and Evan Longoria (surgery on right index finger), the Giants are expected to get LaMonte Wade Jr. into the lineup for the first time Friday.

Wade experienced soreness in his left knee during spring training and just this week was cleared to start an injury rehab at Triple-A Sacramento.

Kapler reported Thursday that Wade, one of the team’s top home run threats last season with 18 in just 109 games, passed the Sacramento test and has been green-lighted.

“He played back-to-back games, day game after a night game, just a little generally sore,” Kapler said of outings Tuesday and Wednesday. “We thought (Friday) was a better day for him (than Thursday).”

Cobb lasted just two-thirds of an inning Sunday at home against the Washington Nationals after missing a turn in the rotation due to a groin injury. He allowed five runs, only one of which was earned, in a game the Giants lost 11-5.

The 34-year-old has seen the Cardinals just once in his career, in a 2014 start for the Tampa Bay Rays in which he pitched seven shutout innings, allowing five hits.

He’s faced Pujols 15 times and allowed seven hits (.467 average), including a double and a home run.

The Cardinals have won four of five. Hicks started the first game of the run Sunday but was pulled after 3 1/3 innings, having allowed two runs and two hits against the Arizona Diamondbacks. St. Louis won the game 7-5.

The converted reliever is attempting to stretch out into a traditional starter’s role, and his 63 pitches against the Diamondback were a season high. It was his third consecutive start.

Hicks has never started against the Giants. In two previous relief appearances, he was roughed up for three runs and four hits in two innings.

–Field Level Media

The Seattle Mariners will send out their hottest arm Friday night when they attempt to end a four-game losing streak as they oppose the visiting Tampa Bay Rays on Friday.

Early season sensation Logan Gilbert gets the call for the Mariners, who dropped a 4-3 decision in the series opener on Thursday.

A former first-round pick, Gilbert — who turned 25 Thursday — is pitching more like a cagey veteran than a hurler trying to find his way through his sophomore campaign in the majors.

After posting a 23-3 record in three years at Stetson University — the central Florida school that produced Cy Young Award winners Jacob deGrom and Corey Kluber — the Mariners took the Winter Park, Fla., native with the 14th pick in 2018. He has delivered top-of-the-rotation offerings so far.

Gilbert (4-0, 0.64 ERA) made four starts in a dominating April, which included victories over reigning division champions Tampa Bay and the Chicago White Sox. That showing earned him the American League Pitcher of the Month Award for April.

Gilbert defeated the Rays in front of family and friends in St. Petersburg, Fla., on April 26, firing 5 2/3 scoreless innings and allowing two hits and three walks with seven strikeouts.

In his latest start, opposite the Miami Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara, Gilbert outdueled the All-Star in an 8-4 win on Sunday, pitching 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball.

“It doesn’t get a whole lot better,” said Seattle manager Scott Servais, whose club is 5-0 in Gilbert’s starts. “That’s why he’s near the league leaders and I think he knew coming into the game today, he was going to have to pitch extremely well against Alcantara.”

In three career starts against the Rays, Gilbert is 1-1 with a 3.86 ERA and 20 strikeouts in 16 1/3 innings. Tampa Bay has hit .207 against him.

The Rays benefited Thursday from the heroics from All-Star catcher Mike Zunino, who tormented his former team with a three-run homer in a four-run fourth inning.

Zunino socked his long ball off starter Robbie Ray to put Tampa Bay up 4-0, and the Mariners couldn’t erase the deficit while taking their eighth defeat in nine games.

The Rays were 3-13 in their past 16 games at Seattle before the one-run win but have now won three of four against the Mariners overall this season.

Zunino also came through in Oakland on Tuesday night when he delivered a game-tying two-run homer off the bench in the ninth inning and drove in another run with a 10th-inning single in a 10-7 win.

“I’m just trying to have good at-bats,” said Zunino, who now has three homers on the season but is batting just .143. “If I can get in the box and help the team in any way I can, it’s a plus.”

The defending AL East champion Rays have won four straight and have been triumphant in eight of their past 11 games.

“I think we’re just catching our stride. We’re playing our brand of baseball,” Zunino said.

Right-hander Matt Wisler (1-0, 1.50 ERA) will be the opener for Tampa Bay on Friday ahead of the expected bulk pitcher, right-hander Josh Fleming (2-3, 6.32).

In three career outings against Seattle, two of them starts, Fleming is 1-1 with a 4.73 ERA. Wisler has no decisions and a 6.40 ERA in six career games (one start) vs. the Mariners.

–Field Level Media

Manny Machado is locked in.

The Padres third baseman produced the 31st multi-home run game of his career Thursday night to account for both runs in San Diego’s 2-1 win over the visiting Miami Marlins during the opener of a four-game series.

Machado has hit safely in nine of his past 10 games, going 17-for-40 (.425) with two doubles, four home runs, 10 RBIs and 13 runs. He has also drawn five walks while striking out six times in that span, raising his season average to .374 (second in the major leagues) and his OPS to 1.104 (tops in the majors).

“He’s just a great all-around player,” Padres substitute manager Ryan Christenson said Thursday night after Machado took Jesus Luzardo deep twice to give San Diego a win. Christenson, San Diego’s bench coach, filled in the past two days with manager Bob Melvin sidelined due to a non-COVID illness.

While Thursday ended up being a good night for San Diego, Wednesday was a rough day for both the Padres and Marlins, who flew from the east to the west after blowing leads in losses.

The Padres, however, have won seven of their past nine games. The Marlins have lost five in a row going into the Friday night game, which matches Miami right-hander Sandy Alcantara (2-1, 2.90 ERA) against San Diego right-hander Yu Darvish (2-1, 4.44).

The Marlins dropped the series opener to the Padres despite getting a strong six innings from Luzardo. The lefty allowed just three hits, but two of them were Machado’s long balls.

“Luzardo deserved better tonight,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said postgame. “Two swings shouldn’t beat you. We’ve lost four straight one-run games. You have to find ways to win close games.”

The Padres did on a night when their bullpen was depleted after playing 19 innings while splitting a doubleheader at Cleveland on Wednesday.

“We really needed Nick (Martinez) to give us seven innings tonight and he did,” said Christenson, who added that Melvin should be well enough to return as the manager Friday, when much of the bullpen will be set to return to action, too.

The Friday game will see each team’s Opening Day starter make his sixth start of the year.

Alcantara is coming off his worst outing of the season. The 6-foot-5, 26-year-old give up five runs on six hits, four walks and a hit batter on Sunday in a 7-3 loss to the visiting Seattle Mariners. He also yielded his second and third homers of the season.

Alcantara has faced the Padres only once before. Last Aug. 11, he held San Diego scoreless over seven innings, allowing four hits and two walks while striking out seven in a 7-0 victory.

The Padres have won Darvish’s past three starts since he gave up nine runs on eight hits and two walks in just 1 2/3 innings against the San Francisco Giants on April 12. Over his three most recent starts, Darvish is 2-0 with a 1.93 ERA and a 0.911 WHIP. He last pitched on April 29, when he held the Pittsburgh Pirates to three runs in six innings during a 73 win.

Darvish is 2-2 lifetime against the Marlins with a 6.25 ERA in six starts, including a shutout in 2014. He faced Miami once last year, and he gave up four runs in five innings during a 9-3 loss on July 25.

–Field Level Media

Two of the hottest teams in the National League, the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks, are set to face off in a three-game series starting Friday night at Phoenix.

The Rockies won five of six games in their just-concluded homestand against the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals.

The Diamondbacks are riding a three-game sweep of the Miami Marlins, capping a 5-2 trip that included a four-game split against the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Colorado pitching staff enters the series ranked 26th in the majors with a 4.56 ERA and 29th with an average of 6.96 strikeouts per nine innings, with the latter figure ahead of just Arizona’s 6.61.

Six Rockies pitchers combined to strike out just two on Thursday, but Colorado still emerged with a 9-7 win over the Nationals.

What is saving the Rockies’ pitchers are double plays. They have induced 36 ground-ball double plays, the best figure in the majors.

Colorado turned two key double plays Thursday, one behind reliever Jhoulys Chacin to quell a rally in the fifth inning and another behind reliever Robert Stephenson to limit Washington to two runs in the seventh.

“It’s a function of us having ground-ball pitchers, especially in the rotation,” Colorado manager Bud Black said. “We know that we have to keep the ball down in this park (in Denver). Here, it’s a little dangerous to pitch up, unless you have a guy who consistently throws it in the right spot, where they will swing at it.

“We stress keeping the ball down in the zone, and defensively we have always stressed, even prior to me, the importance of defense in this ballpark.”

The Diamondbacks enter the weekend series still buzzing about the events of their sweep-clinching, 8-7 win over the Marlins on Wednesday. Arizona starting pitcher Madison Bumgarner was ejected after one inning following a hand check by umpire Dan Bellino for banned substances.

Bumgarner took exception that Bellino took a few seconds rubbing his hand and looking at his face instead of the hand. A comment by the left-hander prompted the ump to send him to the showers.

“I don’t know if I could say anything that would make the situation better,” Bumgarner said. “What I am going to say is I’m extremely proud of our team, coming back. Obviously, I didn’t go into the game with the intention of throwing one inning. Everyone picked me up today.”

The Diamondbacks, who relied on their bullpen for the win, have one of the best rotations in baseball with Bumgarner (1-1, 1.50 ERA), Zac Gallen (1-0, 1.27) and Merrill Kelly (2-1, 1.27) with ERAs under 2.00 in a combined 73 1/3 innings pitched.

Friday’s matchup between Kelly and fellow right-hander Chad Kuhl (3-0, 1.90) has the makings of a pitchers’ duel.

Kelly, making his sixth start of the season, is limiting opponents to a .208 batting average. However, he is just 1-3 with a 6.49 ERA in six career starts against the Rockies.

Kuhl’s lifetime numbers against the Diamondbacks are ugly, too: 0-1 with an 11.25 ERA in three appearances (two starts).

Kuhl has won his past three starts, most recently limiting the Cincinnati Reds to three runs on five hits in 7 1/3 innings during a 4-3 victory on Saturday.

–Field Level Media

A recent surge has propelled the Los Angeles Angels to the top of the American League West, while a swoon has banished the Washington Nationals to the basement in the National League East.

On Friday night, when Washington’s Joan Adon (1-4, 7.33 ERA) opposes an undecided Los Angeles starter in the opener of a three-game series at Anaheim, Calif., it will be a meeting of teams with different mindsets.

Coming off two wins in Boston in a span of 15 hours and with nine victories in their past 12 games, the Angels arrive home on a high.

Meanwhile, the Nationals have lost 11 of their past 14, a stretch that began with an eight-game losing streak.

One plus for Washington is missing Shohei Ohtani’s turn in the rotation. On Thursday afternoon in an 8-0 win, the right-hander dazzled the Red Sox with seven shutout innings, scattering six hits and fanning 11.

Ohtani didn’t walk a batter and threw 81 strikes on 99 pitches. He also went 2-for-4 at the plate, inspiring comparison to Babe Ruth, who played in Fenway Park a century ago.

“He’s the best player in the league,” losing pitcher Rich Hill said. “Everybody should be really appreciating what we’re seeing because it’s something we haven’t seen in 100 years and we may never see it again for another 100 years.”

Angels manager Joe Maddon echoed Hill’s comments.

“I hope you don’t start taking that for granted, like it’s old hat,” Maddon said. “It’s just so unusual. It’s otherworldly on this level of the game.”

The Angles have thrived with an offense that ranks among the top three in the majors in runs (128), home runs (34), steals (17), slugging percentage (.416) and OPS (.737).

In the two wins at Boston, Jared Walsh hit home runs in each and totaled eight RBIs, giving him a team-high 18 for the season.

Taylor Ward, a 28-year-old career reserve, has been a revelation, leading the Angels with a .368 batting average and six home runs. Mike Trout also has six homers and a .316 average.

Despite their recent woes, the Nationals have come alive on offense during their current road trip, averaging 7.8 runs per game but only winning three of six games.

Yadiel Hernandez has led the offensive surge, leading the team with a .373 average. Josh Bell, who is hitting .356 with 19 RBIs, has been a constant.

Juan Soto hit his sixth home run Thursday afternoon in a 9-7 road loss to the Colorado Rockies, but he has only seven RBIs this year.

Soto made an uncharacteristic mental blunder in the latest defeat, venturing too far off third base and getting thrown out on a fifth-inning play that derailed a potentially big rally.

“That could have made the tying run in the game and I just made myself out,” Soto said. “I won’t blame anybody. It was me.”

After earning his first major league win by pitching six-plus shutout innings in a 1-0 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on April 19, Adon has endured back-to-back rough outings. Both of his latest two starts came against the San Francisco Giants, and Adon surrendered a total of nine runs on 10 hits in eight innings.

Adon, 23, will face the Angels for the first time in his career.

–Field Level Media

Right-hander Jose Urquidy continued a stellar stretch by Houston starters, delivering six shutout innings on Thursday in the Astros’ 3-2 win over the visiting Detroit Tigers.

The teams continue their four-game series in Houston on Friday.

While the Astros won the opener in walk-off fashion on Thursday, Urquidy set the tone by posting Houston’s eighth start of at least six innings over the past 11 games.

Houston starters are 7-3 with a 2.05 ERA over the past 11 games.

The Astros will conclude a stretch of playing games on 17 consecutive games with the finale against the Tigers on Sunday. Houston manager Dusty Baker said his starting staff has been integral in getting through the challenging stretch without forcing him to overburden the bullpen.

“This is getting to the point where guys are getting in shape, getting to the point where guys are showing the ability to go 100 pitches, go close to seven innings,” Baker said. “Starting pitching is the key. Starting pitching sets the tone for everything, sets the tone for your offense where you don’t have to have nearly as much, sets the tone for your bullpen where you don’t have to go to the same guys every day.”

Right-hander Luis Garcia (1-1, 4.15 ERA) is the scheduled starter for the Astros in the second game of the series. He recorded his first quality start of the season against the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday, allowing two runs on five hits and one walk with five strikeouts over six innings in the Astros’ 2-1 loss.

Garcia is 1-0 with a 1.74 ERA over two career games (one start) against the Tigers. He worked six innings in a 12-3 road win over Detroit on June 24, 2021, and allowed two runs on seven hits and two walks with five strikeouts.

Rookie right-hander Beau Brieske (0-1, 3.60 ERA) has the starting assignment for Detroit on Friday. He made his major league debut on April 23, allowing three runs on three hits and two walks with three strikeouts over five innings in a 3-2 home loss to the Colorado Rockies.

Brieske did not factor into the decision in his latest start, the Tigers’ 5-1 road win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday. He allowed one run on three hits and two walks with three strikeouts over five innings.

Brieske was a 27th-round selection by Detroit in the 2019 draft.

Detroit entered the series ranked last in the American League in slugging, making the two-run, two-out, game-tying home run from Jeimer Candelario in the top of the ninth inning on Thursday one of the more timely extra-base hits the Tigers have enjoyed this season.

“We’ve been having a hard time getting the big hit,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “I thought our at-bats were better. We get the big hit, Candy comes up and ties the game with two outs. Their closer (Ryan Pressly) is in the game and so that’s obviously a great job by our guys hanging in there and fighting and doing their part to keep the game alive.

“Hopefully the energy at the top half of the ninth inning will carry over into (Friday).”

–Field Level Media