Although you will be hard pressed to find anyone within the Dodgers organization to admit it, the three-game series with the NL West second-place Arizona Diamondback – which begins tonight at Dodger Stadium – will have a huge impact on baseball’s most intense divisional race.

Oh sure, you can argue that there is still a lot of baseball yet to be played in the 2017 regular season, but the simple truth is that the Dbacks have matched the Dodgers almost win-for-win over the last two months and there is no indication of them letting up any time soon. In fact, over their last 10 games, the snakes have won six while the Dodgers have won seven of their last 10.

The Dodger kick off the most important series of the season tonight against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The game will be followed by a huge Fourth of July fireworks show.
(Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)

Where things get dicey is that in their seven meetings thus far this season, the Dbacks have won four of them, including two of four at Dodger Stadium.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the Dodgers are 46-19 (.741) since the last time the two teams squared off against each other back on April 23, whereas the Dbacks are 40-23 (.635) – not a big disparity, but some.

Simply put, the Dodgers have zero margin for error over the next three nights if they hope to widen their precarious 2.5-game lead over Arizona. Fortunately, the Dodgers will be sending throwing their three best starters against the Diamondbacks (Clayton Kershaw, Alex Wood and Rich Hill) while avoiding Dbacks ace and former Dodger Zack Greinke this time around, so they’ve got that going for them.

Play Ball!