A look at what’s happening around the majors Friday:

TEXAS STORY

Colorado shortstop Trevor Story gets to play a big league game near home for the first time when the Rockies open an interleague series Friday night at the Texas Rangers Kendall Lamm Jersey , in a stadium only a few miles from his hometown of Irving, Texas. The Rockies last played at Texas in 2016, which was Story’s standout rookie season. But Story, the 45th overall pick in the 2011 draft out of Irving High, suffered a season-ending left thumb injury about two weeks before that series. Another Texas native starts the opener for the Rockies in right-hander Chad Bettis (4-1), who is from Lubbock and went to Texas Tech. He got a no decision in the Rockies’ 12-9 win during that August 2016 series when he allowed five runs in five innings.

ACES UP

Two of the National League’s top pitchers this season will face off when the Chicago Cubs open a weekend series at the St. Louis Cardinals. Jon Lester (7-2) takes the mound for the Cubs, who are coming off two straight losses at Milwaukee, and the left-hander is fourth in the NL in ERA (2.22). Michael Wacha, meanwhile, is 8-1 and seventh in the league with a 2.47 ERA – providing a much-needed boost for a Cardinals team that’s 4-5 in its last nine games against Miami, Cincinnati and San Diego.

BACK IN TOWN

Nathan Eovaldi (1-1) takes the ball for the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium, his fourth outing since becoming the 12th pitcher to start a major league game following multiple Tommy John surgeries. Eovaldi pitched for the Yankees from 2015-16 Maliek Collins Jersey , going 14-3 for them in 2015, but has never faced New York. ”I wish I would have been able to finish on a healthy note. Other than that, I really enjoyed my time there,” Eovaldi said.

Jonathan Loaisiga comes up from Double-A Trenton to make his big league debut for the Yankees, starting in place of injured Masahiro Tanaka. The 23-year-old Loaisiga, from Nicaragua, returned to the mound last year from Tommy John surgery. ”Super excited. This is a great opportunity the Yankees are giving me,” Loaisiga said through a translator. ”It’s been a tough road for me to get here and now it’s about enjoying this moment.”

GIO WATCH

Gio Gonzalez (6-2, 2.65 ERA) had his worst start of the season in his last outing, allowing four runs in 3 1/3 innings against the San Francisco Giants last week. The Washington Nationals left-hander will return to the mound when he makes an interleague start against the Toronto Blue Jays.

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When Barry Trotz left the Washington Capitals fresh off winning the Stanley Cup, the New York Islanders couldn’t move fast enough to talk to him.

Minutes after word circulated that Trotz resigned from the Capitals, Islanders president of hockey operations Lou Lamoriello got in touch. On Thursday Calvin Johnson Jersey , the Islanders hired Trotz and hope to benefit from the first Stanley Cup-winning coach leaving his team in a contract dispute in 24 years.

”It’s certainly not something that you see every day,” Lamoriello said Thursday after the NHL general managers meeting. ”But I think we’re the fortunate recipient of it that we were able to have him come in our organization.”

The Capitals weren’t willing to pay top dollar to keep Trotz in the fold, so the Islanders pounced and have a fresh selling point to try to retain face of the franchise John Tavares. Trotz, who brings his resume with the fifth-most wins in NHL history, two Presidents’ Trophy seasons and now a Stanley Cup, has already been in touch with Tavares, a 27-year-old point-a-game center who can begin speaking with other teams next week and become a free agent July 1.

”That’s something that really is John’s mind,” Lamoriello said. ”We don’t know what he’s thinking, but certainly he’s a very important part of this franchise.”

Trotz considers himself one piece of the puzzle of re-signing Tavares and believes the process is in good hands with Lamoriello, who won the Cup three times as New Jersey’s GM and also helped turn Toronto back into a playoff team.

”If you know anything about those two parties, they are of the highest integrity, both of those gentlemen Keelan Cole Jersey ,” Trotz said of Lamoriello and Tavares. ”I think that they’ll have great dialogue and we’re hoping to have John be a part of it.”

Trotz is now a part of it after the Islanders gave him the kind of long-term, big-money contract the Capitals weren’t willing to commit to the 55-year-old who coached them the past four seasons. The deal is reportedly for five years at $4 million or more annually, more than double what he would have made in Washington.

After hoping the Capitals would renegotiate the automatic two-year extension that kicked in for winning a Cup and offered only a $300,000 raise to about $2 million, Trotz took the chance on leaving and found an immediate home three days after resigning.

”It’s good to be wanted,” Trotz said. ”It happened really quickly because you’re going from one emotion of winning the Cup to the next emotion of leaving the team you just won a Cup with and you have to make some quick decisions.”

The Capitals were barely done celebrating their first championship in franchise history when GM Brian MacLellan and Trotz sat down to talk contract. Trotz thought the deal he had with the Capitals was ”a little unfair based on value around the league,” thanks in large part to the $50 million, eight-year contract Toronto’s Mike Babcock signed in 2015 that helped raise coaching salaries.

When it was clear to each side right away there wasn’t a fit, Trotz asked for and was granted his release. MacLellan wasn’t surprised Trotz immediately went to the Islanders.

”Could’ve guaranteed it,” MacLellan said. ”I’m happy for him. I think he got what he wanted, and that’s a good opportunity for him. It’s a good payday for him, too. So it worked out good.”

It worked out great for the Islanders Joseph Noteboom Jersey , who go from GM Garth Snow and previously inexperienced coach Doug Weight to Lamoriello and Trotz. They already have rookie of the year Mathew Barzal as a building block of the future, and now they have a coach who brings with him a shiny new Cup ring.

”What we need is we need an individual who can walk in that locker room with the players who are there who have not really had a lot of success and he walks in there with instant success,” Lamoriello said. ”People follow that, and I think that that’s a very important thing for these young men.”

In the past 40 years, Trotz is just the fifth coach not to return to a Stanley Cup winner and the first since Scotty Bowman retired after winning with Detroit in 2002. Mike Keenan in 1994 was the last coach to leave a Cup champion in a contract dispute when he did not return to the New York Rangers.

MacLellan will move on to interviewing associate coach Todd Reirden to replace Trotz, but the strangeness of this situation isn’t lost on the veteran hockey executive.

”It’s so weird,” MacLellan said. ”It’s awkward. It’s weird. I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know what we could do with it.”

MacLellan said Trotz wanted to be compensated among the top four or five coaches in the NHL. His deal with the Islanders puts him behind Babcock, Chicago’s Joel Quenneville and Montreal’s Claude Julien – all fellow Cup winners – but ahead of most of the rest of the league.

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