The Dodgers opened a four-game series with the Diamondbacks by losing 4-1 on Monday night, a setback that kept Arizona from being a sideshow in a season the Los Angeles club had mostly controlled. Eduardo Rodriguez and three relievers shut down the Dodgers, and Arizona claimed its first win in the set.
The result landed at a moment the Dodgers were looking to keep pushing their advantage in the season matchup. Los Angeles had gone 3-1 against Arizona after sweeping the teams' opening series of the year, so Monday's loss made the series harder to treat like a routine stop. It also came with Tuesday night's starter already in view: Eric Lauer is set for his second Dodgers start after being acquired from the Toronto Blue Jays in a midseason trade.
Lauer gave the Dodgers a reason to trust the move last week, when he threw six innings of one-run ball in his debut against the Colorado Rockies. He struck out four and walked one, a sharp turn from the 6.69 ERA he carried across 36.1 innings with Toronto before the trade. Tuesday gives him another chance to back that start up, this time against the Diamondbacks, a team he faced in April as a Blue Jay and beat up only slightly less than the scoreboard suggested in a 6-3 loss, allowing three runs over five innings.
That is the part that makes this series interesting. The Dodgers had not lost back-to-back games since May 9-12, when they dropped four straight against the Atlanta Braves and San Francisco Giants, and now they need to keep one defeat from becoming a familiar slide. Lauer, too, arrives with his own storyline still attached after comments about pitching behind an opener drew attention and he later said the remarks were taken out of context, adding that there was no ill will and no hurt feelings.
For the Dodgers, Tuesday night is about more than one start. It is about stopping the first crack in a four-game series before it becomes the start of something larger, and Lauer is the man on the mound when that question gets answered.
