Arizona @ Oakland preview
Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum
Last Meeting ( Mar 24, 2011 ) Oakland 15, Arizona 7
THE STORY: The Arizona Diamondbacks may have put together back-to-back winning months for the first time since 2009, but they're looking to begin July better than they finished June. On Friday, they'll get their chance when they visit the Oakland Athletics in the opener of a three-game series. Arizona lost four of its last five games to end the month with a 15-14 record after going a franchise-best 19-10 in May. The Diamondbacks are two games behind the San Francisco Giants in the National League West race. Oakland has lost six of eight contests following a season-best six-game winning streak. Injury prone Rich Harden makes his first start of the season for Oakland.
TV: 10:05 p.m. ET, FSAZ, CSCA.
PITCHING MATCHUP: Diamondbacks RH Josh Collmenter (4-4, 2.71 ERA) vs. Athletics RH Rich Harden (0-0, 0.00 ERA)
Collmenter has lost three straight outings after allowing two earned runs or less in each of his first six starts. He has allowed 14 earned runs and 23 hits in 18 innings during the losing skid. Collmenter's ERA was 1.12 before the rough spell. The righthander allowed six runs and 10 hits in six innings against the Detroit Tigers in his last outing. He has never faced Oakland.
Harden injured an arm muscle in spring training and was deemed ready after making two rehab starts at Triple-A Sacramento. He went 5-5 with a 5.58 ERA for the Texas Rangers last season and is 55-34 over his big-league career. Harden has made just one career start against Arizona and lost that game despite allowing just one run and hit in seven innings while pitching for the Chicago Cubs in 2008. He struck out 10 in the contest.
ABOUT THE ATHLETICS (36-46): Oakland scored five runs in the series against Florida and didn’t score an earned run against the three Marlins starters. Jemile Weeks is officially Oakland’s starting second baseman after the club traded veteran Mark Ellis to the Colorado Rockies on Thursday for minor-league pitcher Bruce Billings and a player to be named The switch-hitting Weeks took advantage of his opportunity when Ellis was on the disabled list and is batting .309 in 21 games after getting two hits in Thursday’s loss. By comparison, Ellis was batting just .217. Coco Crisp and Kurt Suzuki each belted homers on Thursday to end a franchise-record 32-game streak without multiple homers dating back to May 24. David DeJesus committed a throwing error to end a streak of 301 errorless games. The streak was the longest among outfielders.
ABOUT THE DIAMONDBACKS (44-38): Closer J.J. Putz is struggling with three blown saves and a ninth-inning loss among his last nine appearances. Putz had a 6.17 ERA in 12 June appearances. He didn’t allow an earned run in 13 games in May. Right fielder Justin Upton batted .382 in June and is 8-for-19 lifetime in five career games against Oakland. Upton is batting .304 overall. Left fielder Gerardo Parra is 8-for-15 over the last five games. Center fielder Chris Young has a team-high 15 homers but has hit just one over his last 12 games. First baseman Juan Miranda is hitless in 11 at-bats over his last four games and batted just .151 in June. Arizona parted ways with infielder Melvin Mora, who was batting just .228.
FINAL PITCH: Oakland manager Bob Melvin served in the same capacity with the Diamondbacks from 2005-09 and made current Arizona skipper Kirk Gibson his bench coach in 2007. Gibson took over as Diamondbacks manager one year ago today when A.J. Hinch was fired. The Athletics are 9-10 since Melvin took over for Bob Geren on June 9.