Los Angeles Dodgers begin their last series in Arizona

The Los Angeles Dodgers play the Arizona Diamondbacks for the last time in 2019 in a four-game road series at Chase Field.

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks have had a lot of closely-contested battles over the last several years, most of which have had playoff implications. This year that has not been the case, as the Diamondbacks are just one game above .500 and 20 games out of the NL West lead.

This is not the same NL West battle that we saw last year where the Diamondbacks held the advantage only to fall out of the running with a terrible last month that saw the Dodgers and Colorado Rockies play Game 163.

This isn’t even like the 2017 season, where the Dodgers still won the division comfortably but had to go through the Diamondbacks in the NLDS, although they went through them quite easily with a three-game sweep.

This last series does not have the intensity that it has had the last two years, although the Dodgers are still fighting for potential home-field advantage in the World Series while the Diamondbacks hope to somehow erase a 4.5 game deficit in the wild card race.

Going for the Dodgers on Thursday is the team’s of 2019 and NL Cy Young frontrunner, Hyun-Jin Ryu. Ryu was roughed up badly in his last start against the New York Yankees and did not have a great showing the start prior. A great performance here would be huge for Ryu to get back on track.

Meanwhile, Merrill Kelly gets the start for the Diamondbacks. He has not been fantastic this year, sporting a 4.86 ERA but he is second on the team in innings pitched behind Robbie Ray, and only trails him by two-thirds of an inning.

Kelly has been pretty decent against the Dodgers thus far. As part of our Los Angeles Dodgers Beat the Streak series, here is who we think can get at least one base hit on Thursday.

Jason’s pick (Current streak: 4): Cody Bellinger

Before I get into my reasoning with selecting Cody Bellinger, I just want to point out that yesterday I picked Kenta Maeda as my Beat the Streak pick and predicted that he would get the bat head out to the ball and slap something to right field a la Justin Turner.

What did he do? He got the bat head out to the ball and drove in two runs with an RBI single to right-center. I don’t get them that spot on very often, so I have to bask in it when I do.

Anyways, as for Bellinger, he is in a bit of a rut right now as the season comes down to a close and he has the high expectations that come with being in an MVP race. He is hitting just .234 in his last 30 games and just .130 in his last seven.

He still has a .310 on-base percentage over the last week and a .872 OPS over the last month, so it is just the hits that have been hard to come by.

Some pessimistic Dodger fans will look at this as a sign of Bellinger’s true value; sounds crazy, I know, but I have already seen that on Twitter. However, Mike Trout is hitting .214 over his last seven and Christian Yelich is slugging just .320 in his last seven with no home runs or RBIs.

Yelich is getting on base at a much higher rate than Bellinger over the last seven, but it is obvious that even the best in baseball get worn down throughout the year.

Bellinger is due for a home run to once again tie Mike Trout at 43 home runs and there is no better place to do it than Phoenix, which is adjacent to his hometown of Phoenix.