Diamondbacks / Dodgers Series Preview

A quick two game series between these two teams headed in opposite directions. The Dodgers find themselves with the best record in baseball at 18-8, while the Diamondbacks come in struggling at 11-14. Let's take a trip down recent memory lane to see how these two teams got to where they are today.

Team	Hitting	Arm	Range R	Error R	Overall Fielding	SP	RP	Overall Pitching	Team Total
Units	RAR	NL Rank	NL Rank	NL Rank	UZR	RAR	RAR	WAR	WAR
Arizona	1.1				3.5	25.5	8.6	3.8	0.4
Los Angeles	52.8				-2.6	22.2	6.2	3.1	4.9
Arizona NL Rank	15th	6th	2nd	14th	6th	2nd	3rd	2nd	15th
Los Angeles NL Rank	1st	9th	10th	11th	9th	4th	4th	4th	1st

The DBacks come in as advertised an all pitching and no hitting team. Their defense has made some slight improvements but not enough to make up for their awful hitting to begin the 2009 season. The Dodgers also have been solid pitching wise, and enter the game with the 4th best pitching staff in the NL (2 spots behind the DBacks). These two teams would be mirror images of each other, and for the most part last year they were, except that this year the Dodgers have the number one ranked offense in the NL. The DBacks on the otherhand have the 15th ranked offense in the NL. Both bullpens are solid, though each has been through some turbulence of late. The DBacks find their closer Jose Valverde on the DL and the Dodgers recently placed 2008 Setup Man of the Year, HongZhi Guo on the DL.

Series Pitching Matchups
Date	DBacks	Dodgers	Vegas Favorite
5/4	Doug Davis	Eric Stults	Dodgers 57.4%
5/5	Max Scherzer	Jeff Weaver	Dodgers 55.0%

Source for stats: Fangraphs