Atlanta @ Arizona preview
Chase Field
Last Meeting ( May 16, 2010 ) Arizona 1, Atlanta 13
It’s one of baseball’s hottest teams against one of the game’s coldest squads when the Atlanta Braves visit the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday night.
The NL East-leading Braves are 20-6 over the last four weeks while the basement-dwelling Diamondbacks of the NL West have lost 11 of their last 13 contests.
Atlanta has rallied nicely from a dismal start and its 33-24 record is just a half-game shy of the National League's best mark shared by the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals. Arizona (22-35) is tied with the Houston Astros for the league’s worst mark.
In addition, Arizona has won two of its last three contests since ending a 10-game losing streak. Sunday’s loss to the Colorado Rockies came against baseball’s top pitcher this season – Ubaldo Jimenez.
The Braves are 2-2 over their last four games but the split came against the National League's other hot team, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The two teams that are heading in opposite directions are playing a four-game set in Phoenix. Interestingly enough, the Braves were in last place when the teams started a series in Atlanta in mid-May. The Braves’ victory in the series finale on May 16 got them out of the basement.
Atlanta hopes to get third baseman Chipper Jones back from a finger injury sometime during the series. Jones suffered the injury last Wednesday.
The injury is to Jones’ right ring finger and that makes it tough for the switch-hitting veteran to bat left-handed. Jones is not expected to play against right-hander Dan Haren on Monday.
Arizona is scheduled to pitch three right-handers in a row before lefty Dontrelle Willis starts Thursday’s series finale.
Braves first baseman Troy Glaus has been highly productive over the past dozen games with five homers and 17 RBIs during that span.
A former Diamondback, Glaus went 3-for-5 with a homer and two RBIs against Arizona in the game that got the Braves out of the cellar. Haren started that game for the Diamondbacks but Glaus’ homer was off since-departed reliever Bobby Howry.
Haren (5-4) was hit hard in that contest, allowing seven runs – six earned – and eight hits in 4 1/3 innings.
Haren gave up a season-high eight runs in 6 1/3 innings two starts ago against Colorado but rebounded to throw eight shutout innings in a no-decision against Los Angeles in his most recent start.
The three-time All-Star has an uncharacteristic – for him – ERA of 4.83.
Derek Lowe (8-4) starts for the Braves and he has won three consecutive starts. Lowe had allowed just four runs in 20 innings during that span.
He has a 4.44 ERA and didn’t pitch against the Diamondbacks during the mid-May series. He’s 6-8 with a 3.68 ERA in 18 career starts against Arizona.
Arizona left fielder Conor Jackson knows how to end a long homerless streak in style. Jackson went 194 at-bats without a homer this season until connecting Sunday against the aforementioned Jimenez, who is 11-1 with a 0.93 ERA.