Colorado has struggled throughout June and early July but looked to have turned things around with a

Deja vu all over again in Phoenix on Tuesday as the red hot Los Angeles Dodgers look to continue quality inn home their hot play and assault on the division leading quality inn home Arizona Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks are currently the NL West leaders holding a 3.5 game advantage over second place Los Angeles. That margin is very insignificant, however, given the Dodgers torrid form over the past six weeks. Los Angeles has shot back into contention after a horrific start of the season and enter this game having won 13 of their last 16 games to vault over the rest of division and back into contention. Their success has been compounded by the fact that none of the other NL West teams have been winning much of late.
Colorado has struggled throughout June and early July but looked to have turned things around with a five game winning streak over the weekend. That streak came to a crashing halt on Monday as the Dodgers pounded out 17 hits en route to a 6-1 victory. In retrospect, the Diamondbacks five game winning street looks less impressive quality inn home due to scheduling two wins were against the lowly New York Mets and were followed by a three game sweep against the Colorado Rockies. The Rockies struggle against left handed pitching and the D-Backs served up nothing but southpaws over the weekend.
Los Angeles will start newly acquired Ricky Nolasco it s hard to evaluate what he s done this season since he s languished quality inn home with the miserable Miami Marlins. He s a decent quality inn home pitcher on a red hot team that should give him plenty of run support. Usually in these matchup reports we look at a team s full season performance but that s not really possible with the Dodgers. Year to date, they ve lost money and their records don t look like much. More recently, however, they ve been nearly unbeatable. Nolasco is a Southern California native and should be energized to not only be wearing the iconic Dodger blue but to be pitching for a contender after spending the first half of the season in baseball quality inn home exile in South Florida. Until they give us a reason to do otherwise we ll back the Dodgers any time we can get a reasonable price.