Dodgers vs. Diamondbacks Preview
ARIZONA (AP) – With first place in the NL West still in sight, Arizona Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson initially contemplated skipping Josh Collmenter’s turn in the rotation after his poor performance against the Los Angeles Dodgers last week.
Instead, Gibson will send out the rookie right-hander when the Diamondbacks return from a successful road stretch by opening a three-game series with Los Angeles on Friday night.
Arizona (61-50) has won eight of 11 and earned six of those victories during a nine-game trip against division foes. Winning four in a row during that trek gave the Diamondbacks a share of the NL West lead Tuesday, but they dropped back into second with an 8-1 loss the following day to first-place San Francisco.
Collmenter’s performance against the Dodgers (50-60) wasn’t one of the highlights of that trip. During a 9-5 loss last Friday, the right-hander gave up five runs and seven hits over 3 2-3 innings, the briefest outing in his 14 career starts.
Collmenter (6-6, 3.10 ERA) also allowed two hits over six innings against Los Angeles in his first major league start May 14, earning a 1-0 win. Another strong outing could make Gibson’s decision to give the rest of his rotation some more rest a wise one.
“We’ve asked a lot of (the starters), so we’re just kind of looking out the rest of the month and the season,” Gibson told the team’s official website. “It just can’t hurt.”
Dodgers right-hander Chad Billingsley (9-9, 4.15) will try to rebound from his rough outing against Arizona on Saturday, when he gave up six runs and five walks over 5 2-3 innings of a 6-4 defeat.
According to MLB odds and oddsmakers from online sports book Bodog have made the Diamondbacks -134 money line favorites for Friday’s game against the Dodgers. Current MLB Public Betting Information shows that 70% of more than 121 bets for this game have been placed on the Diamondbacks -134.
“It’s baseball,” he told his team’s official website. “I was just trying to throw strikes and everything happened. What can you do about it? You just got to come back out and do it again.”
Billingsley has alternated losses and wins in his last five starts, posting a 6.63 ERA during the three defeats and a 0.60 ERA in the other two games.
Billingsley has a 2.65 ERA over his last five matchups with the Diamondbacks, but has one win to show for his efforts. He suffered the loss in Collmenter’s first start despite allowing one unearned run and one hit over eight innings.
Billingsley might have to pitch carefully to Justin Upton and Ryan Roberts.
Upton had a 14-game hit streak snapped Wednesday and batted .436 with seven homers and 21 RBIs during the longest run by a Diamondback this season. Roberts is hitting .500 with two homers and five RBIs over his last six contests.
Upton is 6 for 33 in his career against Billingsley and Roberts is 1 for 2.
The Dodgers’ Matt Kemp, batting .419 in his last 11 games, is 2 for 5 versus Collmenter and had five RBIs, including a three-run homer, in last week’s victory. Juan Rivera hit a pair of doubles for Los Angeles in that game.
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