ATLANTA — Randall Delgado, who had never pitched in a game above Double-A, had a difficult challenge in his debut for Atlanta: Josh Hamilton and the defending American League champion Texas Rangers.

Hamilton hit a homer off the rookie in the Rangers’ 6-2 win over the Braves on Friday night, but Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said Delgado won respect.

“I’ll tell you what, I was really, really impressed,” Gonzalez said. “He’s got about two and a half pitches, for a young kid pitching in the big leagues.

DENVER — Chris Nelson hit his first major league home run during a six-run second inning and Carlos Gonzalez homered and doubled to drive in four runs, helping the Colorado Rockies beat the Detroit Tigers 13-6 Friday night.

Rookie Charlie Blackmon added four hits and two RBIs, helping to fuel the Rockies’ second-highest scoring output of the season and improve their winning percentage in interleague competition to .620 (49-30) since 2006, tops in the NL in that span.

Jason Hammel (4-6) weathered Jhonny Peralta’s grand slam in the sixth to win for the first time since April 30, snapping a string of five consecutive losing decisions. He allowed six runs on eight hits in 6 1-3 innings and walked four with two strikeouts.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Florida manager Edwin Rodriguez is just about willing to try anything to help his team stop a dismal slide.

“I might come in early (Saturday) and turn the calendar one month ... make them think it’s July,” Rodriguez said with a smile after the Marlins dropped to 1-16 this month after losing 5-1 to the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday night.

The Marlins, who have also lost eight in a row, got a homer from John Buck. Florida went 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position.

BOSTON — Shaun Marcum has a strained left hip flexor but hopes to make his next scheduled start after leaving the Milwaukee Brewers game with a hip injury.

The right-hander threw 44 pitches in the first inning of the Brewers’ 10-4 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Friday night. He was replaced at the start of the bottom of the second by Marco Estrada. It was announced late in the game that Marcum had a strained left hip flexor.

Manager Ron Roenicke said Marcum, 7-2 with a 2.85 ERA, told him the hip hurt. Marcum tried to stretch it after the top of the first. He left the game after allowing two runs and four hits, with one strikeout, one walk and a wild pitch. He also allowed a leadoff homer to Jacoby Ellsbury.

WASHINGTON — Late home runs by Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina rallied the St. Louis Cardinals only to see them fall short yet again.

Reliever Fernando Salas gave up a three-run homer to Danny Espinosa in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Washington Nationals a 7-4 win Thursday night. It was the sixth straight loss for the Cardinals, who were swept in consecutive series at Milwaukee and Washington.

St. Louis trailed 4-2 going into the eighth and forced extra innings against the Nationals’ top two relievers.

TOYOTA, Japan — President Akio Toyoda promised shareholders a revived Toyota despite the production disruptions from the earthquake and tsunami that decimated northeastern Japan on March 11, and first offered his prayers for those killed.

The disaster dominated Friday’s annual shareholders at Toyota Motor Corp. headquarters in the town named after the world’s biggest automaker.

It started with a solemn moment of silence for those killed and missing, now estimated at more than 23,000 people. The first question from investors was about what the company was doing in response to the destruction.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Business leaders on Thursday warned that the government’s plans to ration electricity because of recurring power outages could curb production and thereby slow Venezuela’s economic recovery.

Venezuela’s largest business chamber, Fedecamaras, said government measures aimed at reducing demand, including rolling blackouts, hefty fines on consumers that use excessive electricity and a resolution requiring businesses to install fuel-powered generators will curb industrial production and retails sales.

ATLANTA — Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones left Thursday night’s game against the New York Mets in the top of the ninth inning with a strained adductor muscle in his right leg.

He is listed day to day.

Jones may have suffered the injury running from first to third on Brian McCann’s single in the seventh inning. He remained in the game for another inning before leaving in the ninth.

ATLANTA — A new study shows one in four high school students drink soda every day — a sign fewer teens are downing the sugary drinks.

The study also found teens drink water, milk and fruit juices most often — a pleasant surprise, because researchers weren’t certain that was the case.

“We were very pleased to see that,” said the study’s lead author, Nancy Bener of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

___

Greek default could trigger chain reaction

FRANKFURT, Germany — Greece’s economy is small but the shock waves from a default on its debt could be amplified by links in the global financial system to hurt stocks, banks and entire economies far from the epicenter in Athens.

Thomas R. Frieden took over as the director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta in June 2009. Before moving to the CDC, Frieden, a physician with extensive experience with both communicable and noncommunicable diseases, served as commissioner of the New York Health Department from 2002 to 2009.

What are your priorities at the CDC?

Scientists in California have begun selecting patients to participate in the second research project approved in the United States to evaluate a therapy made from human embryonic stem cells.

A team led by Steven Schwartz at UCLA started picking volunteers for the studies, which will treat two forms of progressive blindness, Advanced Cell Technology of Marlborough, Mass., which is sponsoring the study, announced Thursday.

The Food and Drug Administration in November approved the company’s plans to test cells created from human embryonic stem cells on patients suffering from Stargardt Macular Dystrophy, a progressive form of blindness that usually begins in childhood, and Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in the developed world.

New research suggests that consuming lots of olive oil is associated with a reduced risk of ischemic stroke.

A study published on-line Wednesday in the journal Neurology looked at olive-oil consumption among more than 7,600 people ages 65 and older in three French cities who had taken part in what’s known as the Three-City Study. After controlling for diet, lifestyle and stroke-risk factors, they found that “intensive” olive-oil users (those who used it for cooking and dressing their food) had a 41 percent reduced risk of ischemic (the kind caused by an artery blockage) stroke during the five-year follow-up period than those who reported using no olive oil at all.

MINNEAPOLIS — The Chicago White Sox have a theft prevention problem.

Carl Pavano kept up his recent surge with a complete-game six-hitter for Minnesota in a 4-1 victory over the White Sox on Wednesday night, fueled in part by five stolen bases by the Twins.

Pavano (4-5) walked three, struck out five and recorded six one-pitch outs against the free-swinging White Sox, who had won nine of their previous 13 games. The right-hander is 2-0 with a 1.44 ERA over his last three starts, and the Twins have won 10 of their last 12 games.

WASHINGTON — Not much is going right for the St. Louis Cardinals these days.

Not even for Albert Pujols.

Pujols made two errors at third base that led to a pair of unearned runs and the Cardinals lost their season-worst fifth in a row, falling 10-0 to Livan Hernandez and the Washington Nationals on Wednesday night.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Brad Marchand was more star forward than agitator in the Boston Bruins’ Stanley Cup-winning game Wednesday night.

The fiesty rookie set up Patrice Bergeron for the first goal late in the first period, added one of his own with 7:47 left in the second, and scored his 11th of the playoffs into an empty net.

Marchand, who lived up to his reputation as a “rat” with seven uncontested gloved punches to the face of Daniel Sedin at the end of a Game 6 he also opened the scoring in, did his talking on the scoresheet in Boston’s 4-0 victory Wednesday night in Game 7.

A 55-year-old man who was fatally shot by D.C. police Tuesday after an hours-long standoff at his Northwest Washington home had a history of erratic behavior, his neighbors said.

Jean E. Louis, who lived in the 1600 block of Irving Street, allegedly stabbed an officer in the arm with a sharpened screwdriver about 1:30 p.m. and then barricaded himself in his Mount Pleasant apartment as police tried to persuade him to surrender.

Louis, a Haitian immigrant whose occasional ranting unnerved some neighbors, was shot to death about 5:30 p.m. by officers who said Louis lunged at them with screwdrivers as they tried to enter the apartment to arrest him. Police said Wednesday that the shooting remained under investigation.

WASHINGTON — For all the optimistic talk, negotiators seeking a deal for lifting a lid on how much money the government can borrow are learning how difficult it is to cut deficits by $2 trillion over the next decade or so.

Just this week, the farm lobby showed it will fight to preserve its lucrative federal support as it rallied to the defense of a $5 billion a year subsidy on corn-produced ethanol, while House leaders maneuvered to protect up to $167 million in cuts in direct payments to farmers.

NEW YORK — Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market:

NYSE

Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., down $3.15 at $49.19

SOFIA, Bulgaria — Bulgaria’s government says it has granted U.S. oil company Chevron a permit to explore for shale gas in northeastern Bulgaria over the next five years.

The government said in a statement Wednesday that Chevron would prepare a five-year project worth €50 million ($72 million) and invest €4 million ($5.8 million) on environment protection.

California-based Chevron won a tender in May to explore for natural gas in shale deposits in Bulgaria.