Diamondbacks looking to win back divisional dignity as Dodgers come to town

Dating back to June 13 last year, the Arizona Diamondbacks have gone 4-14 against the Los Angeles Dodgers in their last 18 contests.

This year, they are 1-7 against their division foe, after flying 7,800 miles to Sydney, Australia, where they were swept in Major League Baseball’s opening series.

Their lone win over the Dodgers this season was had in extra innings, with the catalyzing run scoring on a wild pitch.

Manager Don Mattingly’s side has outscored the Kirk Gibson’s Diamondbacks by 18 runs over the first eight contests this season.

On Friday, the Diamondbacks will look to right the record against not just the Dodgers, but also the division at large. They are a combined 8-16 against the Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres. They’ve won just two of the eight divisional series they’ve played so far and they have a winning record against just one such foe — the Padres.

Pitcher Wade Miley will take the mound for the Diamonbdacks at Chase Field, where the team has some other demons to exorcise. Gibson’s squad is just 4-17 at home this season — including the two games in Sydney — and they still haven’t won a home series.

Miley, nonetheless, will be representing a much-improved starting rotation for the Diamondbacks when he toes the rubber this weekend, looking to carry the momentum that pitchers Bronson Arroyo and Brandon McCarthy drummed up with back-to-back nine and eight-inning one-run starts.

He’ll likely be followed by Josh Collmenter on Saturday and Chase Anderson on Sunday.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, may counter with Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw and Dan Haren, if they stay in order, but the team has yet to announce its probable pitchers for the series.

The Diamondbacks are currently 11 games back of the Giants in the West; the Dodgers are 4.5 back.

In the last meeting of the two teams, the Diamondbacks were swept at home by the Dodgers to cap off an 0-6 homestand at Chase Field. The team is 1-2 on its current homestand after falling to the Washington Nationals 5-1 on Wednesday.

Though mired at the bottom of the standings, it seems the Diamondbacks’ morale would benefit from a resurgence against their stated foe and, more generally, their division of play.