Happy Mother’s Day to all of those great moms out there.

In the world of sports, the athletes that we’ve grown to love wouldn’t be the superstars that they are today without the women who raised them. At the same time, there have been some kickass women, who are also mothers and competitors in the world of sports.

Let’s take a look at the greatest sports mothers ever.

Serena Williams

Why not start this off with the GOAT? Williams famously won the 2017 Australian Open while eight to nine weeks pregnant with her daughter, Olympia. A fitting name for the daughter of an athlete who has four gold medals.

In the 2017 Aussie Open, Williams defeated her sister, Venus Williams, in the final and labeled this as her greatest career achievement. Williams didn’t drop a single set, making this one of the most dominant victories in her storied career.

Williams discovered she was pregnant with her first child days before the tournament. Even with that sort of pressure, she was able to dominate the competition.

American tennis might never have another phenom like Williams, so we should appreciate this story and her career whenever we get the chance.

Gloria James

It’s wild that because of LeBron James’ greatness on the hardwood, we forget about his tremendously humble beginnings.

Gloria had LeBron at 16 as a single mother in Akron. The pair faced unstable housing and the pressure of raising a young child at such a young age. Gloria wasn’t focused on creating arguably the greatest basketball player of all-time, she was simply trying to survive with her new son.

During LeBron’s first stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Gloria was a fixture in the Cleveland market, appearing courtside at games and jawing at the other team. Now, she serves as the vice president of the LeBron James Family Foundation and is tremendously active in her son’s charitable works. She has a son still playing in the NBA, and a grandson playing with him. Pretty damn cool.

Wanda Durant

The real MVP, Kevin Durant’s mother was also a single mom that had to navigate raising a son that would eventually turn into one of the purest scorers of all-time.

Wanda rose to fame during KD’s acceptance speech for his 2014 NBA MVP award. He credited her with keeping them off the streets, providing food and clothing, and working to keep the family going.

“You went to sleep hungry,” Durant said. “You sacrificed for us.”

At the end of the day, what great mother wouldn’t?

San Francisco Giants fans undoubtedly will hope to see more of the same from top prospect Bryce Eldridge and less from their bullpen when the club closes out a three-game home series against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday afternoon.

Fifteen outs after starting pitcher Landen Roupp left a scoreless game with one man on base Saturday, the Giants’ bullpen served up 12 runs in a 13-3 defeat.

Four of San Francisco’s first five relievers allowed runs in a blowout that saw infielder Christian Koss record the final three outs. The Pirates tacked on their final three runs during his mop-up task.

The Giants have lost nine of 11, a stretch during which their bullpen collapsed late in recent road losses to the Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays.

The San Francisco bullpen has five blown saves in 12 opportunities this season.

With the Giants having traded Patrick Bailey to Cleveland earlier in the day, placing Logan Webb on the injured list and enduring the 10-run shellacking, the team was looking for something to celebrate after the game. That was Eldridge’s first career home run.

Called up from Triple-A Sacramento earlier this week, the top prospect had been 1-for-10 before his homer in the fifth inning.

“He’s always a bright spot as far as his attitude goes around the park,” Giants manager Tony Vitello told reporters after the loss. “It’s nice to get a positive feedback for his swings because he hit some balls hard right at guys, too.”

Eldridge will go after No. 2 in the series finale against Pirates right-hander Bubba Chandler (1-4, 4.76 ERA), who has not faced the Giants in his young career.

Chandler has an impressive outing to follow after Braxton Ashcraft allowed one run on six hits over seven innings. It was the seventh game this season in which Ashcraft has allowed two or fewer earned runs this season. In this case, the only home run he surrendered came on Eldridge’s first career homer.

“I take pride in the fact that I throw a lot of strikes,” Ashcraft said. “That’s a big thing, getting guys out of the box early, not letting an at-bat extend.

“I was in the bullpen last year and I know how taxing that can be. As a staff, entirely, we’ve done a really good job of doing our job. Starting pitching going deep in games, it takes a lot of weight off the bullpen.”

Chandler will try to keep the Giants and Eldridge at bay. The 23-year-old will be attempting to snap a personal three-game losing streak during which he’s gotten a total of five runs of support. He held the Arizona Diamondbacks to two runs in five innings Tuesday in Phoenix, a game the Pirates eventually lost 9-0.

Attempting to tame a Pirates team that has won six of eight will be Giants right-hander Tyler Mahle (1-4, 5.00), who was a victim of the San Francisco bullpen in his most recent start last Sunday at Tampa Bay. The veteran shut out the Rays over 5 1/3 innings, but watched the Giants suffer a 2-1, 10-inning defeat.

It was the third time in his past five starts that he didn’t allow a run, a stretch in which he has just one win.

The 31-year-old has gone 5-4 with a 3.84 ERA in 13 career starts against the Pirates, whose 20 hits Saturday didn’t include a homer.

– Field Level Media

Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo summoned the starting rotation to his office on a road trip in Chicago during a recent rough patch.

“It was to remind us that we are really good, and what we are going through now is not who we are,” right-hander Merrill Kelly said.

Maybe the meeting was not required.

“Obviously, Torey’s message was good,” Kelly said. “But at the end of the day, we’ve been doing this for a long time. We know when we are pitching well. We all knew we weren’t doing our job. At the end of the day, we all felt we had to be better.”

The pitchers have improved even if Arizona is just 2-8 since the start of its road series in Chicago against the Cubs. The Diamondbacks have made quality starts in four of their past five outings, including Kelly’s 2-1 victory over the New York Mets on Saturday to even their series at one game apiece. They will play the rubber game Sunday in Phoenix.

Eduardo Rodriguez (3-0, 2.50 ERA), who started the five-game run last Tuesday, will be back on the mound Sunday as the Diamondbacks look for their first series win since they took a series from the Toronto Blue Jays April 17-19.

The Mets are expected to use left-hander David Peterson (1-4, 6.29) for the bulk of the game Sunday, likely after an opener. Right-hander Huascar Brazoban (2-0, 1.53) is listed as the starter on MLB.com.

Kelly gave up three hits and one run in seven innings on Saturday, by far his best start of the season after being delayed out of spring training with a back injury. He had given up 19 runs in 13 2/3 innings in his previous three starts.

“You almost felt like the kid who finally passed the test, who’s been getting Fs the whole time but finally got an A,” Kelly said.

The Mets continued to scuffle offensively, managing only three hits on Saturday after getting five hits — two in the first nine innings — in a 3-1, 10-inning victory in the series opener Friday.

They wasted a strong outing from Clay Holmes, who gave up two runs and five hits while in 5 2/3 innings, tying a season high with six strikeouts.

“I thought he was very good, even though they put together some really good at-bats,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “They made him work.”

Arizona’s Rodriguez threw seven scoreless innings in a 9-0 victory over Pittsburgh on Tuesday to start the streak, the best start in his 46 outings with Arizona.

“They’re dudes,” Lovullo said of his rotation. “They’re tough. I just created an awareness.”

The Diamondbacks went 13 straight games — two-plus times through the rotation — without a starter going as long as six innings before Rodriguez’s gem. He gave up two hits, struck out seven and walked three.

Only one Pirates hitter reached third against Rodriguez, who threw a season-high 103 pitches.

Rodriguez delivered his own strong message to Lovullo when the manager made a mound visit with two outs in the last of the seventh Tuesday with Arizona leading 7-0.

“He backed me down and said, ‘Give me one last hitter,'” Lovullo said. “I told him, ‘This is your last hitter.’ I challenged him. He challenged me back. I like that kind of stuff. It fires me up.”

Rodriguez is 2-1 with a 5.20 ERA in five career starts against the Mets, his best coming this season in a 7-1 victory at Citi Field pn April 9, when he gave up one run and five hits in six innings.

-Field Level Media