The Milwaukee Brewers have been unable to best the Arizona Diamondbacks in five meetings this season. They hope to reverse that trend on Saturday night behind the streaking Kyle Lohse, who gets the start for the third contest of this four-game series.
The Brewers were swept in a three-game set at home by the Diamondbacks back in early April and have dropped the first two contests of this series to push their overall losing streak to three games in a row.
Milwaukee had its chances to win Friday's encounter, but wasted a solid start from Tom Gorzelanny and left 11 men on base in a 2-1 loss.
Both runs charged to Gorzelanny were unearned and he yielded just three hits and a walk over six innings. But Milwaukee went 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position and twice had a runner at third with nobody out before failing to score.
Jean Segura had two hits and scored the only run on a wild pitch for the Brewers, who have lost eight of their last 10 versus the D'backs overall.
"When it rains, it pours," Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy said. "I feel like everything that can go wrong, does. We struggled getting runners in from third with less than two outs, and that's what beat us."
Patrick Corbin escaped trouble over his 6 2/3 innings to win his 11th contest of the season. The All-Star allowed a run on seven hits and two walks and matched his career high with 10 strikeouts over a second straight game.
"Corbin really had his pitches working for him tonight," said Arizona manager Kirk Gibson. "He did a great job locating his fastball and was able to hit the corners with it. And the bullpen really did a good job for us out there tonight."
Paul Goldschmidt drove in a run while Cody Ross scored the go-ahead run in the second inning on an error by Yuniesky Betancourt.
Arizona won for the seventh time in its past 10 games and moved 2 1/2 games ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers for first place in the NL West. The D'backs were swept in a three-game set by the Dodgers prior to this series.
The Diamondbacks will now have to deal with Lohse, who is looking to extend his current unbeaten streak to nine straight starts.
Milwaukee is 6-2 in games started by Lohse since his last loss on May 30, while the right-hander himself has gone 4-0 with a 2.37 earned run average. Lohse won his second start in a row on Monday, allowing three runs on nine hits and a walk in a 4-3 decision over Cincinnati.
"May wasn't my most healthy month. I battled a hamstring with some other issues," said Lohse, now 5-6 with a 3.47 ERA in 18 starts this season. "I made a couple of mistakes about finishing pitches where I normally do. Once I got into June I felt better and got to pitch like I normally do."
Lohse, 34, allowed a run over six innings of a no-decision versus the Diamondbacks in his Brewers debut on April 5 and is 3-2 lifetime against Arizona with a 4.21 ERA in 11 starts.
The Diamondbacks turn tonight to Randall Delgado, who had mixed results in his last trip to the hill.
The 23-year-old allowed three runs and did not walk a batter over six innings versus the Dodgers on Monday, but had to work around 11 hits and dropped a 6-1 decision.
"He didn't throw the ball bad at all," Gibson said. "He had everything working."
Delgado is 1-3 with a 3.82 ERA in six games (5 starts) this season, not allowing more than three earned runs in any of those appearances.
The righty faces the Brewers for the first time.
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