Pujols to see friend Ortiz honored before Angels face Red Sox

BOSTON -- Albert Pujols is happy that he and his Los Angeles Angels teammates will be at Fenway Park for the David Ortiz number retirement ceremony on Friday night.

Pujols was a teenager when he met the fellow Dominican and the two are close now. On Friday night, Ortiz gets his ultimate Red Sox honor before the teams open a three-game series with the Angels' Alex Meyer facing Boston's Rick Porcello.

"It's pretty awesome," Pujols said before the Angels rallied from four runs down and clubbed the Yankees 10-5 in the rubber game of a three-game series on Thursday night in the Bronx.

"He had an amazing career," Pujols said. "To be able to see how the city of Boston appreciates his career and celebrates one last time, it will be pretty cool and pretty emotional."

With Red Sox fans still hoping Ortiz will change his mind, his No. 34 will go up on the facade of retired numbers in right field at Fenway. The city of Boston announced Friday that one of the streets around the ballpark, previously known as the Yawkey Way Extension, will now be David Ortiz Drive and lead up to the Ortiz Bridge.

"This city means a lot to me," said Ortiz, famous for saying, "This is our (expletive) city," to the Fenway crowd after the Boston Marathon bombings. "Boston has been incredible to me and my family. I love this city. I can talk about it all day."

Once the pregame festivities are over, a hot Meyer will go against an ice-cold Porcello in the series opener.

Meyer allowed just two hits, walked one and struck out nine in six shutout innings in his last start, a 9-0 win over the Kansas City Royals.

It was the first time in 15 career starts that Meyer threw six scoreless innings.

He is 1-1 with a 1.19 ERA in four starts this month, a stretch in which he has struck out 27 in 22 2/3 innings and lowered his overall ERA from 5.79 to 3.52.

Porcello, the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner, has been living a pitching nightmare. After going 22-4 last year in front of the largest amount of offensive support of any pitcher in the major leagues, he is 3-9 with a whopping 5.05 ERA in 2017.

Porcello has gone at least six innings in 12 straight starts -- the longest streak in the American League -- but he is 0-4 with a 7.92 ERA in his last five starts, allowing 47 hits and 27 earned runs in 30 2/3 innings.

He pitched a complete game to win at Anaheim last season, but is just 5-6 with a 6.26 ERA in 14 career starts against the Angels -- 94 hits allowed in 77 2/3 career innings.

His season is looking more like the 9-15 record he staggered through in 2015, his first year in Boston.

"I don't know, I don't think back to (2015), necessarily," Porcello said after his latest loss. "You just try to make the adjustments you need to make to get back to executing pitches. It's a different year. I'm not going to go back and look at all that sort of stuff. It's a matter of executing pitches.

"That's what got me out of the (funk) I was in in 2015, and that's what's going to get me out of it now -- executing pitches."

Cole Calhoun in 6-for-12 (.500) with two homers, Pujols 8-for-23 (.348) with a homer and Cliff Pennington 5-for-15 (.333) against Porcello. Yunel Escobar is just 2-for-16 (.125), Andrelton Simmons 1-for-8 (.125) and Luis Valbuena 2-for-10 (.200) against the right-hander.

Meyer has never faced the Red Sox.

The comeback win in New York on Thursday night lifted the Angels to 12-11 since Mike Trout went down with thumb injury.

While Matt Shoemaker was slated to come off the disabled list to pitch Sunday in Boston, Shoemaker needs more evaluation and Parker Bridwell will start for the Angels.

"I keep saying, 'Continue to stick around and hopefully we just win a series,'" said Cameron Maybin, who has been outstanding in center field with Trout out (he has reached base in 26 straight games). "Winning each series is big. I think that's the focus.

"It was good to start this road trip by taking this series from a really, really good ball team (in) a tough place to play. So we've got to take this energy -- we had great energy the two nights that we won -- and take the energy into Boston, try to keep it going."

The Red Sox, one percentage point behind the Yankees for the AL East lead, are coming off a 4-4 road trip and have seven straight at home. On Wednesday in Kansas City, the bullpen blew a game late, dropping Boston to 29-1 this season when leading after seven innings.