The D’backs (20-15) got off to a strong start in the four-game set with the Phils (16-20), taking the opener 2-1 in a pitcher’s duel. Patrick Corbin was once again stellar for the D’backs and Heath Bell made his first appearance as the announced closer, shutting down the Phils in the ninth for his fourth save of the season.

The Phillies are 25th in the league in runs per game, 3.66, on offense and even worse on the road, 3.18. This is the first series between the two teams this season. In 2012, the Phillies were on the right end of a six-game set, winning four of the six games.

With three games still ahead, the D’backs would like nothing more to continue their four-game win streak. Here’s how it sets up.

Game 1 (Friday): Ian Kennedy (1-3, 5.19 ERA) vs. Tyler Cloyd (0-0, —-)

In his last time out, Kennedy had such a “IPK” outing that it was almost cliche. He went seven innings, fighting through three walks and seven hits given up. But he also gave up for runs in those seven innings. That seems to be the norm for Kennedy the past 12 months. He doesn’t have an out pitch, leaving him with very few options when trying to run through a lineup three times. He has three quality starts this season, two outings where he gave up four runs and another where he gave up six. He also only has one “stellar” start, which I define as seven innings or longer, giving up two runs or less. Cloyd, taking DL’d Roy Halladay‘s spot on the rotation, will be making his 2013 debut. He started six games for the Phillies in 2012, going 2-2 with a 4.91 ERA. With the Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs of the International League this season, he’s gone 1-3 with a 5.40 ERA; however, he has an 8.2 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9 in 35 innings.

Game 2 (Saturday): Trevor Cahill (2-3, 2.80) vs Cliff Lee (3-2, 3.26)

Quietly, Cahill has been absolutely dominant after his first two starts of the season. He’s thrown 27.1 innings since then, and has only allowed five runs in those outings. Though, his most strike outs came in those first two games of the season where he allowed seven runs in 10.2 innings. Somebody let @cantpredictball know on Twitter. Lee has been the Phillies’ best pitcher this year out of the big three (Lee, Halladay and Cole Hamels), which would be okay if he was his usual dominant self. Instead, he’s been good, even great, but not exceptional. In his previous three outings combined, he’s thrown 19 innings and allowed 10 runs. His control of the strike zone has remained stellar, though, only walking five the entire season.

Game 3 (Sunday): Brandon McCarthy (0-3, 6.75) vs. Kyle Kendrick (4-1, 2.45)

McCarthy threw his first quality start of the season his last time out, a 5-3 win over the Dodgers on May 7. But it was the quality start that I believe shouldn’t count. He lasted only 6.1 innings and allowed three earned. It was his best outing of the season with a doubt, though. He’s been incredibly unlucky with BABIP against so far, with a unsustainable .385 mark against him. League average is .300 and most pitchers will be fairly close to that, some above, some below, but nothing even close to that high. That bad luck continued in his previous outing. He struck out three, walked one and still gave up eight hits in 27 batters faced, giving him a .348 BABIP in the game. That’s obviously a tiny sample size and any one game can be much higher and much lower for pitchers, but at some point, McCarthy’s going to start getting a tad luckier. That being said, his other peripheral numbers aren’t stellar right now. I’ll have a more detailed post up on Sunday. If Lee has been the best Phils’ starter of the big three, Kendrick has been the best pitcher of the entire staff. He’s on a streak of five straight starts of at least six innings and two runs or less, including a complete-game shut out on April 26 against the Mets. In his last outing, he went seven innings, allowed two runs on six hits and struck out six.

Is Cole Hamels just getting unlucky? Or is it something else?

Unlucky.  Cole has had plenty of issues with run support before, and with bad luck, so combined with a slow start, he’s been pretty ineffective.  Especially for a guy we made such a big deal about signing for six more years.

The stuff’s in there.  We could just really use some more blatant examples of it recently, with so much less potent of a rotation backing him up.

Should Ryan Howard scare opposing fans anymore?

Absolutely.  Have you seen that contract?  They tell stories about it around the bonfire at training camp.

What’s the upside of this team? The downside?

The upside is that we have Cole locked up, Freddy Galvis is youthful and full of vigor, Chase seems to be hitting okay, and Cliff Lee is here.  The downside is that Chooch, Doc, and Chase are all up for reassignment, the team in general is not very good, Ben Revere looks more and more like a complete bust, the parts of the bullpen that work are wastes of money if the other parts of the bullpen that aren’t working continue to not work, and everybody’s only getting older.

Also, it’s all Charlie Manuel or Ruben Amaro‘s fault, depending on the day.

Why do the Phillies’ brass seem perplexed as to why their lineup doesn’t take walks? 

Related, have they heard of baseball reference before?

I’d say probably no.  Ruben Amaro shows a staggering absence of intelligence at times, for a guy who seems to have it all figured out.  His lack of belief in walks and the organizations disbelief in modern stats is sickening at times, and probably why some players (AHEM Dom Brown) have been mishandled in the recent past.

How mad are you at Kevin Towers for giving your divisional rival a christmas present of Justin Upton?

I would be pretty mad, but honestly, we’ve got about 1,000 problems to worry about before we can fathom taking on the Braves, let alone Upton.  Then again, he is an individual example of the Braves as a whole – lot of home runs, lot of strike outs.  They’re gonna hack.  And it’s already bringing them back down to earth.

Is Michael Young as classy as everyone says he is?

I’ll say sure.  But I was never worried about that.

If he could convince a ground ball to hop into his glove using that keen sense of clubhouse leadership, that’d be great.  But they’re usually moving too fast.

His questions and my answers:

So is Ian Kennedy going to be a problem or can we depend on his location sputtering out again?

This, sadly, is what we can expect from Kennedy. He’s been pretty mediocre for the past 12 months. And that’s mostly been tied to his lack of command with the fastball. While he isn’t walking a ton of people, he also grooves way too many to be effective.

J.J. Putz has decided to take some time off to be injured.  How reliable is the Dbacks bullpen now?  Express in terms of Chad Durbins.

I believe I saw that Putz was heading to the Dominican for a couple of months. I can’t confirm that, but nonetheless, it’s a weird time to take a vaca. However, I believe the bullpen should still be (just a tad) better than one Chad Durbin. David Hernandez has had a couple of shaky outings but has been pretty good and should get better. And outside of Heath Bell‘s first appearance, he’s been (stunningly) pretty good. Combined with Brad Ziegler and Matt Reynolds, the pen should be in decent shape still.

Is it correct to say Paul Goldschmidt is “becoming a star?”  And if so, what kind of a star; one that shines brightly for a long time, or when that grows too big and kills a lot of people?

He’s a star that’s going to kill a lot of people. Just not in the way you were meaning. I think he singlehandedly murdered Tim Lincecum‘s career and is in the process of burying the corpse of Chris Capuano now. He’s been a revelation. He’s improved his walk and strikeout rate, chase percentage and his fielding immensely over the past couple of seasons. He’s approaching top three first baseman in the league quickly.

Lie to me.  What do you think of this team without Roy Halladay?

They’re great. One of the best staffs that can’t pitch and one of the best lineups that can’t walk (or score) I’ve ever seen.

Is there a young prospect with a better name than “Didi Gregorius” in baseball right now?

Xander Bogaerts is a pretty dang good name. Adeiny Hechavarria? Basically all shortstops in baseball it looks like.

 Noah Dougherty –

NL West: 1. Giants, 2. Dodgers, 3. Diamondbacks, 4. Padres, 5. Rockies

NL Division Winners: Braves (best record), Reds, Giants

Wild Cards: Nationals and Dodgers

World Series: Angels over Reds in six games

MVP: Matt Kemp

Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw

Rookie of the Year: Adam Eaton

Justin Upton was a popular pick for our writers. I wonder why? Image: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

NL West: 1. Diamondbacks, 2. Giants, 3. Dodgers, 4. Padres, 5. Rockies

NL Division Winners: Braves, Pirates, Diamondbacks

Wild Cards: Giants and Nationals

World Series: Angels over Braves in five games

MVP: Justin Upton

Cy Young: Ian Kennedy

Rookie of the Year: Gerrit Cole

Chris Lacey –

NL West: 1. Giants, 2. Diamondbacks, 3. Padres, 4. Dodgers, 5. Rockies

NL Division Winners: Nationals, Reds, Giants

Wild Cards: Diamondbacks and Cardinals

World Series: Diamondbacks over Tigers in six games

MVP: Adam Eaton

Cy Young: Wade Miley

Rookie of the Year: Adam Eaton

Tom Lynch:

NL West: 1. Giants, 2. Diamondbacks, 3. Dodgers, 4. Padres, 5. Rockies

NL Division Winners: Phillies, Cardinals, Giants

Wild Cards: Reds, Brewers

World Series: Reds over Rays

MVP: Joey Votto

Cy Young: Cole Hamels

Rookie of the Year: Julio Teheran

J. Levi Burnfin:

NL West: 1. Diamondbacks, 2. Dodgers, 3. Giants, 4. Padres, 5. Rockies

NL Division Winners: Nationals, Cardinals, Diamondbacks

Wild Cards: Braves, Reds

World Series: Braves over Rays in six games

MVP: Justin Upton

Cy Young: Stephen Strasburg

Rookie of the Year: Shelby Miller

What are your predictions? Your guess is as good (probably better) as ours!