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The Arizona Diamondbacks (62-59) tried their best to rise in the standings with a three-game sweep of the lowly Houston Astros, but still remain 4.5 games back in the NL West after the Los Angeles Dodgers (67-55) took two of three from the Atlanta Braves.
Luckily for the defending divisional champions, the Dodgers now have to face the second place San Francisco Giants (66-55), a scenario that has win-win written all over it for Arizona. The Giants, who won two of their three games against the San Diego Padres this past weekend, are now 2-2 since Melky Cabrera's 50-game ban was announced Wednesday.
The D-backs also still didn't receive much help in the wild card race, as they still are five games back of the Pittsburgh Pirates (67-54) for the second entry. Arizona could have made some up serious wild card ground this past week facing the St. Louis Cardinals (65-56) who also hover above the D-backs in the race but instead lost their first two games of the series before stealing the third with a ninth-inning comeback.
Arizona now has the luxury of playing 10 straight at home after getting only one series at Chase Field for the entirety of this month. The D-backs will look to make some noise against two sub-.500 teams (Miami Marlins and Padres) before the Cincinnati Reds roll into town for a challenging three-game test.