We won with the Dodgers in this spot last night and we will come right back with them again tonight. They got the victory last night behind another great pitching performance and that moved them to within five games of San Diego in the National League West. As mentioned yesterday, this series is huge for Los Angeles and its pitching remains the key. The Dodgers have shut out the opposition in four of the last six games and they want to continue that trend. The loss put San Diego 10 games over .500 at home which is still extremely solid but the recent string of wins have come against teams with losing records as it is now 2-5 over its last seven home games against teams with a wining record. It is also 3-7 in its last 10 games overall against winning teams.

The offense has been up and down and the season batting average of .251 is sixth worst in all of baseball. As mentioned, the Dodgers pitching has been outstanding of late and I once again see it continuing tonight. Hiroki Kuroda has been solid all season long with a 3.48 ERA and after a rough ending to the first half, he has picked it up once again in his starts after the All-Star break. He has allowed just one run in two starts covering 14 innings to go along with a 13:2 K:BB ratio. He has a 3.68 ERA in his last four starts against the Padres, three of which resulted in Dodgers victories. San Diego counters with Clayton Richard, who is also having a great season but he looks to be fading. Richard came into July with a 2.74 ERA, but he''s 1-1 with a 7.13 ERA in four starts this month and even though his last was the best, he is clearly not the same right now. The Dodgers fall into a great contrarian run as well as they are 25-8 in their last 33 games after batting .240 or worse over a 10 game span. They are also 22-8 in their last 30 games after allowing two runs or less in their previous game. As for the pitchers, Los Angeles is 18-6 in Kuroda's last 24 starts following a quality outing in his last game while San Diego is