It wasn’t long ago the Los Angeles Dodgers were 4.5 games back of the Arizona Diamondbacks and running out of time by the day to overtake them and win a sixth consecutive National League West title.
But buoyed by back-to-back series sweeps, coupled with the Diamondbacks going 5-5 in their last 10 games, the Dodgers are suddenly just one game out of first place in the division. They begin a key NL West series with Arizona on Thursday night in the opener of a four-game set at Dodger Stadium.
It marks the first time the Dodgers and Diamondbacks are facing one another since May 9, when they split two games at Chavez Ravine.
This weekend’s matchup is one Alex Wood said the Dodgers are looking forward to, via Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:
“You’re at the point in the year where you need to win the games you’re supposed to win,” said Wood. “It’s really nice for us to string five together like we have, especially with us about to play a club we’ve struggled against in Arizona. Those five games came at the right time and we’re pretty excited to go home and see these D-backs again. We saw them so much in such a short span and it was when we weren’t playing so well.”
Los Angeles is just 4-8 in head-to-head meetings with their division rival this season. The Dodgers and Diamondbacks saw each other plenty during the early stages of the 2018 campaign. All 12 of their meetings thus far came within the first six weeks of the season.
The Dodgers were without Justin Turner in each of those contests, and didn’t have deadline-deal acquisitions Brian Dozier and Manny Machado.
After the current four-game series, the Dodgers and Diamondbacks will meet again Sept. 24 for three games at Chase Field. It stands to reason the NL West could very well be decided between their remaining seven games.
