The two worst teams in the National League Central will meet on Monday when the St. Louis Cardinals visit the Pittsburgh Pirates in the opener of a three-game series.

The Pirates sit fourth in the division, with the Cardinals 1 1/2 games behind them. Only the Colorado Rockies have a worse record in the NL.

St. Louis, which is 27-33 on the road, snapped a four-game losing streak on Sunday with a come-from-behind 7-3 win over the New York Mets. Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt had three hits, including a two-run homer in the fifth to put St. Louis on top 3-2.

Goldschmidt was 0-for-7 in his previous two games and 2-for-16 in his previous four entering Sunday.

“It (had) been a rough few days for me and our team,” Goldschmidt said. “It was nice to be able to get that hit and put us on top, and the rest of the guys did a great job to keep us there.

“I’ll keep trying to play well.”

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh has lost five of its last seven games.

The Pirates’ offense has been kind to opposing starters over the past couple of games. At least that’s one way to look at it.

Minnesota’s Sonny Gray pitched 5 1/3 perfect innings on Saturday in a game Pittsburgh came back to win 7-4 behind five RBIs from designated hitter Andrew McCutchen.

In Sunday’s rubber match of the three-game series, Dallas Keuchel pitched 6 1/3 perfect innings as the Pirates lost 2-0, mustering just two hits.

Pittsburgh manager Derek Shelton said the circumstances were different and there was no carryover from Saturday to Sunday

“We just didn’t have any scoring opportunities (Sunday),” Shelton said.

The Pirates will look to get their offense going on Monday against left-hander Drew Rom, who is expected to be summoned from Triple-A Memphis to make his major league debut.

Rom was the primary pitching prospect acquired from Baltimore in an Aug. 1 trade deadline deal that sent right-hander Jack Flaherty to the Orioles.

“He’s got some swing-and-miss, which is exciting,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said of Rom. “We get to take a peek at it, and I look forward to it.”

In two starts at Memphis, Rom recorded a pair of victories, allowing just two runs (one earned) in 11 innings — good for an 0.82 ERA. He also made 19 appearances (18 starts) for Triple-A Norfolk this season while in the Orioles’ organization. During his time there, Rom went 7-6 with a 5.34 ERA.

Left-hander Matthew Liberatore was originally scheduled to take the mound for St. Louis on Monday, but his start was pushed back to Wednesday after he had some back discomfort following a weightlifting workout.

“He was no-throw for two days in order to let it calm down, so we’ll just push it back two days to allow him to get a bullpen in and then still be able to be ready for Wednesday,” Marmol said.

Pittsburgh has yet to name a starter for the series opener.

–Field Level Media

Two struggling teams will begin an important three-game series when the San Francisco Giants visit the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday night.

The teams are jostling for position in the congested National League wild-card race, with the Phillies in the top spot, two games up on the Giants, who sit in second.

The Phillies are coming off a 2-5 stretch as they begin a nine-game homestand. They’re clearly in a rut after Sunday night’s 4-3 loss to the Washington Nationals in the MLB Little League Classic in Williamsport, Pa.

Perhaps the Phillies can still find a spark from the weekend, which included attending a Little League World Series game before their own game.

“Just the energy that they get from the kids and I think it takes them back to their past when they were that age, how excited they were to play the game,” Philadelphia manager Rob Thomson said. “It was really an unbelievable experience to see the energy, the amount of people that were there.”

San Francisco is 4-10 in its last 14 games, though the Giants avoided a three-game series sweep in Atlanta by scoring a run in the ninth inning and winning 4-3 on Sunday.

“We had to show some resilience and score again to win the game,” San Francisco manager Gabe Kapler said.

The Giants, who have won only two of their last 14 road games, placed shortstop Brandon Crawford on the 10-day injured list on Sunday. In his place, Johan Camargo played his sixth big-league game of the season.

The good news for the Giants is that outfielder Luis Matos was back in the lineup after being recalled from Triple-A Sacramento, and he homered on Sunday.

The Phillies have been hot and cold on offense. They put up 9.3 runs per game across three games prior to Sunday’s, but they only avoided being shut out for the fourth time since the All-Star break by scoring three runs in the ninth in their loss to Washington.

However, Philadelphia might be getting healthier. Outfielder Brandon Marsh returned from a left knee injury and went 1-for-4 with a run and an RBI on Sunday.

Right-hander Aaron Nola (10-8, 4.58 ERA) is set to open the homestand on the mound for the Phillies. He hasn’t pitched beyond 5 1/3 innings in any of his last four starts and is 1-2 with a 6.75 ERA during that stretch.

In his last outing, Nola issued a season-high four walks in five innings on Wednesday at Toronto, though he was the winning pitcher despite giving up four runs.

Nola has made six career starts against the Giants, going 2-2 with a 7.85 ERA in 28 2/3 innings. Most recently against them, he was the winning pitcher on June 1, 2022, despite giving up five runs in six innings.

Scott Alexander (6-2, 4.06) will start for the Giants as an opener in what could end up being a bullpen game. The left-hander has made six starts among his 44 appearances, although his longest stint in that role has been 1 2/3 innings.

In eight career relief stints against the Phillies, Alexander is 2-0 with a 3.24 ERA covering 8 1/3 innings.

The Giants swept a three-game series with the Phillies in mid-May in San Francisco.

–Field Level Media

Washington’s Trevor Williams threw six shutout innings to back up the Nationals’ first-inning offense in a 4-3 victory against the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday night in the MLB Little League Classic in Williamsport, Pa.

Relievers Jordan Weems, Hunter Harvey, Mason Thompson and Kyle Finnegan completed the combined six-hitter as the Nationals won for the seventh time in their last nine games.

Washington scored all of its runs in the first inning and its pitchers kept the Phillies mostly under wraps — unlike a day earlier when Philadelphia produced lots of late-game offense to even the three-game series with a 12-3 win. The Phillies scored three runs with two outs in the ninth on Sunday.

Youth players competing in the Little League World Series and their families comprised most of the crowd at Bowman Field in what has become an annual neutral-site event in the big-league schedule. The Phillies dropped to 0-2 in Williamsport, while this was the Nationals’ first appearance.

Williams (6-7) gave up only one hit until Nick Castellanos’ two-out double in the sixth inning. Williams ended up issuing three walks and striking out four while picking up his first victory since July 2.

Finnegan came on with two outs in the ninth with one run in and a runner on first, and promptly gave up a two-run homer to Jake Cave. But Finnegan struck out J.T. Realmuto to notch his 21st save.

The Phillies, who are 2-5 in their last seven games, averaged 9.3 runs per game in their previous three outings but nearly ended up shutout victims for the second time in their last six games.

Phillies starter Zack Wheeler (9-6) strung together six consecutive shutout innings, but the damage had been done in the first inning. He ended up yielding seven hits and one walk while striking out five.

The first five Washington batters had hits off Wheeler, with Keibert Ruiz’s double and Dominic Smith’s single each knocking in two runs.

Joey Meneses of the Nationals went 3-for-4 and teammates Smith and Lane Thomas both had two hits.

A diving play by Washington third baseman Ildemaro Vargas on a ball off the bat of Trea Turner for a forceout in the eighth inning helped tame the Philadelphia offense.

–Field Level Media

A pair of teams that were swept in doubleheaders ahead of Hurricane Hilary’s arrival in Southern California will meet on Monday night when the Miami Marlins open a three-game series with the host San Diego Padres.

Both teams saw their National League wild-card chances take a hit on Saturday, as Miami dropped a pair of games to the Los Angeles Dodgers by identical 3-1 scores while the Padres lost 6-4 in the opener of their twin bill against the Arizona Diamondbacks before falling 8-1 in Game 2.

The losses had more of an impact on San Diego, which now sits six games back of the Chicago Cubs, who currently hold the third and final NL wild-card spot.

“You don’t explain it,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “You just have to keep digging. We put ourselves in this position and continue to. You just keep fighting until you get it right.

“(Saturday) was a long, miserable day. Certainly not what we expected, what we wanted, but we have to push forward.”

Meanwhile, the Marlins are still well within striking distance of Chicago but find themselves in a three-way tie for the No. 4 spot in the wild-card race. Miami is just one game back of the Cubs, but so are the Cincinnati Reds and Arizona.

Despite the sour results on Saturday, Marlins manager Skip Schumaker is still confident in his team.

“It’s tough holding on to a 1-0 lead against the Dodgers,” Schumaker said. “That was a tough loss. Overall, I like the way we’re playing. We just ran into two well-pitched games and didn’t have much going.”

Luckily for Miami, the series against Los Angeles wasn’t a complete a waste. The Marlins clubbed five homers on Friday in an 11-3 victory that snapped the Dodgers’ season-best, 11-game winning streak.

But now Miami has lost four of its last five games. The Marlins will turn to former Padres’ left-hander Ryan Weathers (1-7, 6.89 ERA) to start Monday.

Weathers is 0-1 in one appearance since going to the Marlins in an Aug. 1 trade for first baseman/designated hitter Garrett Cooper and relief pitcher Sean Reynolds. He hasn’t pitched since giving up six runs on six hits and four walks with five strikeouts in 3 2/3 innings at Texas on Aug. 5. Weathers was 0-3 with an 8.79 ERA in four starts for the Padres at Petco Park this season.

Monday would normally have been left-hander Jesus Luzardo’s turn in the rotation. But he has been pushed back to Tuesday after going 0-3 with a 10.59 ERA in his last four starts. He has allowed 21 runs (20 earned) in 17 innings in that span and hasn’t worked more than 5 1/3 innings during any of those outings.

The Padres will counter with right-hander Michael Wacha (9-2, 2.68 ERA), who has been on a roll over the better part of the last three-plus months.

Since May 2, Wacha is 7-1 with a 1.10 ERA over his last 11 starts, including his most recent outing against Baltimore last Tuesday. He allowed three hits in five scoreless innings against the Orioles, walking one and striking out five to earn the win.

Wacha is 3-1 with a 4.05 ERA in five career starts against the Marlins.

–Field Level Media