May 12, 2012; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Justin Upton at bat against the San Francisco Giants at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

The D’backs allegedly have asked for young shortstop Andrelton Simmons, but the Braves have balked at that and look to be building a deal around pitching. They have numerous pitchers that could be attractive to Arizona including Julio Teheran, J.R. Graham and Luke Sims. Major league pitcher Mike Minor (11-10, 4.12 ERA in 2012) has also been mentioned in previous discussion regarding the two teams.

Atlanta would seem to be an attractive destination for Upton as his brother B.J. was signed by the Braves this off-season and the two brothers remain close.

Upton rejected a trade earlier this month to Seattle and it appears that the Upton-D’backs divorce could be settled in the next couple of days.

The Baltimore Orioles have also been busy as they look to acquire Jason Kubel from the D’backs. Kubel is coming off a season in which he hit .253 with 30 home runs and 90 RBI’s and could be a valuable addition to an Orioles team who is trying to replace the power that left with Mark Reynolds. The market for Kubel won’t net Arizona anywhere near what they could get for Upton and that could be the reason why Kubel might remain with the club.

Sept. 11, 2012; Phoenix, AZ, USA: Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Jason Kubel against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

It seems to be whichever deal might be sealed first is the direction in which the D’backs will go. If it’s Upton, then they keep Kubel. If it’s Kubel, then they keep Upton. Stay tuned to see how it all plays out.

Last season for example, everybody thought that Boston would be great and Baltimore would be terrible – in reality, it was the complete opposite and skewed the so-called pre-season strength of schedule.

That being said, looking at the Diamondbacks’ 2013 schedule, the powers-that-be seemed to do no favors for the Snakes.

The D’backs face the entire NL East – a division notoriously difficult and only seems to be even more so in 2013 – and then the Rangers in interleague play.

Those six teams combined to average 85.5 games in 2012, equivalent to a .528 winning percentage. Those numbers are slightly dragged down by Toronto’s 73 wins and Boston’s 69 wins, who both should be improved in 2013 – especially Toronto with all of their big additions this offseason.

So, if the AL East is once again the best division in baseball, by a pretty wide margin, the D’backs will face at least four really good squads there. In addition, Texas is a possibility to falter with the off-season attrition in their roster, but it’s not a good bet, either.

Regardless, its a tough road to plow in 2013 in interleague play and those 20 difficult games, in which the D’backs would be happy going .500, could be the difference between a wild card spot and out of the playoffs.

Just something fun to look at with no real meaning towards what might happen in 2013 is the fact that the D’backs and Blue Jays have only played nine times before. The D’backs have a slight edge with five wins and four losses. In addition, the Diamondbacks best statistical record against any team is their 9-3 mark against the Orioles. That’s where the success in the NL East stops though as the D-backs are 5-7 verse the Sox, 4-8 against the Rays and a putrid 3-9 in contests with the Yanks.

And their 8-17 against the Rangers isn’t very good, either. A full list of the D’backs all-time records against the 29 other teams can be found here.

The biggest stretch of the D’backs schedule as it looks right now, is the final month of the season. The Snakes play 14 of their last 30 games against the Dodgers and Giants – seven games against each club – presumably, the two teams the D’backs will have to surpass to win the NL West. Series against the Blue Jays, Rockies, Padres and Nationals make up the remaining 16 contests in September.

Venom Strikes’ Thomas Lynch takes a broader look at the schedule here, in which he highlights some of the quirks in the D’backs schedule because of the interleague play.

Arizona Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson (23) takes the ball from starting pitcher

I’ll be the first to apologize to the fans that were able to make it out to the Diamondbacks weekend series against the fourth place Padres as there was very little to cheer about in any of the three games. They were shutout Friday, blown out Saturday and failed to come out on top of yet another one run game on Sunday- a game in which they never had the lead. Of course part of the game of baseball is losing. You’re going to lose a lot over the course of a 162 game season; it’s just hard to watch such an uninspiring series against a team with 70 losses in August as you’re the ones that are supposed to be grinding for a playoff spot.

Credit is due to the Padres however, as they’ve now won seven straight games overall and are an impressive 15-9 in August. Their starters pitched effectively and late into games- something not one of our starters got even close to doing.

Transactions: Joe Saunders was dealt to the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday morning for hard throwing right handed reliever Matt Lindstrom and either cash considerations or a player to be named later. Saunders had struggled as of late and is 6-10 with a 4.22 ERA on the season. Lindstrom is 1-0 with a 2.72 ERA in 32 appearances for the Orioles.

Record Notes: With the loss on Sunday, the Dbacks fell back to .500 at 64-64. Their home record sits at 33-31 but they’ve now dropped 10 of their last 14 at Chase Field after winning eight straight contests at home in July. With the sweep, the Padres have now taken a franchise high seven straight from the Diamondbacks which includes two sweeps- the first time the Padres have ever swept the Dbacks at Chase Field.

*With their 5-4 defeat Sunday, the team fell to 10-19 in one-run games, a league worst.

*Friday’s 5-0 defeat marked the fourth time since the All Star break that the offense has been shutout.

GOOD: Justin Upton was one of the bright spots this weekend finishing 4 for 8 with an inside the park homerun on his 25^th birthday. He is now 7 for his last 19 (.368) and has reached base safely in 19 straight games. The homerun was his 10^th on the season, the longest it has ever taken the right fielder to hit his 10^th homerun.

*Aaron Hill hit his 19^th and 20^th homeruns on the year on Saturday and Sunday- his highest total since 2010 when he belted 26. He leads all National League second basemen in homeruns and is tied for second in doubles at his position.  He has also matched his RBI total from 2011 at 61.

*Bullpen. For what they were asked to do in this series, this group of guys did a good job. While they gave up at least one run in each game of the series, they did end up throwing more innings combined than all three starting pitchers combined- 14 innings for the bullpen; 13 for the starters. On both Friday and Sunday they threw 5+ innings allowing just one run in each outing. The issue was that by the time the bullpen was summoned, the Dbacks starters had already given up four runs in each affair.

BAD: RISP. The offense in general was pretty flat but it doesn’t help when you have opportunities to cash in and fail. They were a combined 0-10 with runners in scoring position Friday and Saturday and finished just 2-15 in the category during the series. There were multiple occasions where the Dbacks had a guy on second (or third) with a chance to make some damage and a strikeout would ensue killing any momentum the club had built up.

*Paul Goldschmidt was one of a few that went hitless this series finishing 0 for 7. He did walk four times and score two runs but he is mired in a 2-18 and 6-32 (.188) slump currently. With Goldie collecting zero hits, Montero finishing 2 for 12 and Kubel finishing 0 for 9 you’re not going to see too many runs put up for the Dbacks.

UGLY: Ian Kennedy continues to struggle in 2012 with another ugly outing on Saturday allowing another three homeruns (all solo shots) and walking four hitters on his way to giving up six earned runs in just 5 1/3 innings. In the month of August, the team’s ace has surrendered eight homeruns and sixteen walks posting a 5.60 ERA. He has now matched his career high in homeruns allowed in a season (26) which is also tied for the most allowed by any pitcher in the National League. As he struggles with his control he beaned his eighth batter on the season- a career high. At this point we just have to hope that Kennedy can grind out the remainder of 2012 without enduring some type of arm injury that would hinder his chances of coming back strong in 2013.

*Trevor Cahill was hit hard again on Sunday as he provided the Dbacks with the shortest outing of the season at 3 2/3 innings allowing eight hits and four earned runs. He failed to get out of the first inning unscathed for the 19^th time in 26 starts. His first inning was as follows: groundout, groundout, single, walk, RBI single, RBI single, walk, groundout. There’s definitely something going through Cahill’s head in the first as he really struggles to get three outs without allowing a run- he finished the second by striking out the side.

NOTES: The Padres scored ten of their nineteen runs in the series with two outs.

*Rookie Jake Elmore was 0 for 7 in the series and is now 0 for his last 14. He has yet to record a major league RBI or score a run.

*Paul Goldschmidt hasn’t homered in ten consecutive games, his longest streak without a long ball since he went eleven games from May 12- 26^th.

*The team begins the last three games of their ten game home stand tonight against the Cincinnati Reds. Lefty Tyler Skaggs is making his second career start facing Bronson Arroyo. The Reds have lost three of four but Arroyo comes in on a personal three game winning streak.

Now bring on the Reds!!