Arizona Diamondbacks Close To Clinching Start Series With Pirates

The Arizona Diamondbacks magic number to clinch the NL West is five. Any combination of five Diamondbacks wins or Giants losses and the race is over and the West is won. The Giants have refused to go quietly into the night or it would already be over. They've won eight-straight including series sweeps of the Padres and Rockies. They now head to Los Angeles for a three-game series starting Tuesday before coming to Arizona for a final show down.

The Diamondbacks still very much control their own destiny and despite a little three-game skid which ended Sunday, are right on the verge of another pennant. Helping the cause will be this series against the Pirates who at one point in the season looked competitive but have since collapsed as evidenced by the 21-42 record in the second half of the season.

If the D-backs sweep the Pirates and the Giants lose on Tuesday and Wednesday to the Dodgers, the D-backs will clinch Wednesday. That's a fairly unlikely scenario so plan on this weekend's series against San Fran being the decisive battle.

While the three-games dropped to the Dodgers and Padres didn't really hurt the division race, it set the D-backs back two full games behind the Brewers for home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs. We could look back on that as a lost opportunity. Milwaukee has remaining series against the Cubs, Marlins and Pirates.

Here's the pitching probables and schedule for this series:

• Monday: Ian Kennedy (19-4, 2.99) vs. Charlie Morton (9-10, 3.81)
• Tuesday: Daniel Hudson (16-10, 3.39) vs. Ross Ohlendorf (1-2, 6.82)
• Wednesday (12:40 p.m.) : Wade Miley (3-2, 4.24) vs. Jeff Locke (0-2, 6.75)