Arizona Diamondbacks batter Jason Kubel (13) hits a home run in the fourth inning against Houston Astros at Chase Field. Image: Jennifer Hilderbrand-US PRESSWIRE

Record Notes: With their win on Sunday, the Dbacks improved to 47-48 overall and 26-21 at home. They trail the first place Giants by six games and the final wild card spot by five games. They look to get back to .500 tonight against the Rockies for the first time since July 1^st when they were 39-39.

Transactions: Moves were made over the weekend, some surprising-some not, but either way the team activated third base prospect Ryan Wheeler before Friday’s game after releasing injured Geoff Blum earlier that day. The 39 year old Blum had been placed on the 60 day DL early on in April and hadn’t played in a game since April 16th. The team also designated reliever Bryan Shaw to Reno and activated recently acquired right hander Brad Bergeson. This move was a little surprising although Gibson’s recent public statement about his displeasure with Shaw last week may have been a clue of things to come. Bergeson is expected to fill the role of Josh Collmenter as a long relief guy while Collmenter fills out the final spot in the rotation. Lastly, the team was finally able to activate their veteran reliever Takashi Saito from the DL after the righty spent nearly four months on the disabled list with a leg injury. Jonathan Albaladejo was redesignated to Reno to make room for Saito.

GOOD: Team Offense. This was about as much offense as you could ask for over the weekend as they scored 33 runs on 40 hits over the three game set. Everyone on the club was able to contribute in some context throughout the series and even more impressive was their efficiency with runners in scoring position as they finished 19-39 (.487). Over their last seven games the offense has posted a RISP average of .429.

*Jason Kubel is locked in right now and for the second consecutive month has now recorded at least 20 RBI’s. Despite finishing 0 for 4 with 3 K’s on Friday, the right fielder finished the final two games 6 for 9 with four homeruns, one triple, seven RBI’s and five runs scored. The 10 homeruns for July are a career high for Kubel in one month. He leads the National League in RBI’s with 71 and collected his 500^th career RBI over the weekend.

*Aaron Hill is nearly as hot as Kubel right now riding a 13 game hit streak into their series with Rockies tonight. He finished 5-11 on the weekend with five runs scored and also played in his 1,000 career regular season game. The second baseman leads all N.L. second basemen in hits, AVG, HR, SLG, and OPS. And, no- he did not make the All-Star game.

*Starting Pitching. The starters each pitched well over the weekend with Wade Miley contributing the best outing hurling seven innings and allowing just one earned run. He struck out a career high nine batters en route to his eleventh win. Miley now sports the second lowest ERA among major league rookies (3.02) and is tied for the lead in wins. Trevor Cahill was good enough to win but possibly only because the team exploded for 13 runs as he failed to make it out of the sixth inning for the second straight start and for the fifth time in his last six starts. Collmenter continued his resurgence with the team and is now 2-0 with a 1.71 ERA in July through three starts and one [long] relief appearance.

BAD: In a series sweep with an incredible amount of offense- regardless of the opponent- there aren’t a whole lot of negative points but Bryan Shaw’s appearance on Friday was his second straight appearance where he was unable to get his job done. In his one inning of work the right hander allowed three hits including a three run homerun by third baseman Scott Moore in the ninth inning. The 24 year old Shaw got the news on Saturday and will spend at least a couple weeks in Reno to work on his mechanics.

UGLY: Baserunning. Awful. Horrible. Ugly. It is pretty amazing that this pathetic baserunning continues to occur with this ballclub. This time the culprit is Gerardo Parra who was caught stealing on three occassions over the weekend- two of those were pickoffs coming Sunday while leading off first base where Parra was just plain fooled. The Dbacks have been caught stealing more than any other team in the Major Leagues (37) and hold a 61% success rate where, in all of baseball only two teams have a worse success rate- the Orioles and Pirates for reference in case you didn’t believe someone could be worse than that.

*Defense: Errors. The defense committed three more errors in the series after committing three against the Reds in their last series. Luckily they were playing the inept Astros or they may have made more of an impact. Still, the infield was able to turn four double plays on Sunday and five overall on the weekend.

NOTES: On Friday, Stephen Drewrecorded his first three RBI game since June 3^rd, 2011.

*The offense batted around in both the fifth and seventh innings on Friday. It was the first time they batted around twice in one game all season. They also knocked in seven runs in the sixth inning Sunday- the most in one inning all year.

*With his two run single with the bases loaded on Friday, Miguel Montero is now 5 for 7 with a double, homerun and 14 RBI’s this season with the bases loaded.

*Justin Upton Homerun Watch ended on Friday with an opposite field homerun. He had gone the previous 21 games without going yard.

*Willie Bloomquist Homerun Watch continues at 70 games and 289 at bats. Unfortunately, with Drew returning to the lineup Fast Willie’s at bats are slowing disappearing but the shortstop still contributed in his only game over the weekend going 3 for 4 with 3 RBI’s. It was his fourth consecutive multi-hit game.

*Ryan Roberts is now 4 for his last 5 in pinch hit at bats with his single Sunday. He also raised his average and on base percentages over .250 and .300 respectively for the first time all season.

The Rockies come to town for a three game set beginning tonight with Ian Kennedy hoping to get his record back to .500 for the first time since he was 5-5 on June 5^th- a span of seven starts. He will face recently acquired starter Jonathan Sanchez who is 1-6 on the year and making his first start as a Rockie. The Rockies are 16-29 on the road as they come to Chase Field.

Now bring on the Rockies!!!

Follow me on Twitter at @ndougherty313 and our team at @venomstrikes.

Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-US PRESSWIRE

But, it wouldn’t mean all that much if the D-backs went on to get swept by the Phillies so it was important to continue the momentum they gained in the game Kennedy won into tonight’s game. It didn’t take long.

The D-backs scored four runs and batted around in the first inning against Phillies starter Kyle Kendrick. And an underlying story in how they scored those points was that they didn’t need a home run to score multiple runs. They were able to string together hits and move runners around the bases without the long ball. That is important for the team because the D-backs were batting less than .200 with Runners In Scoring Position. In this game, they were 5-12 with RISP.

That doesn’t mean the D-backs didn’t hit some long balls, though. Justin Upton finally hit his first of the season with a mammoth shot to the left field and Jason Kubel hit his second of the year with a bomb to right field, just one batter after Upton.

The D-backs scored eight runs total in the first four innings to put the game away early or so it seemed at least.

Wade Miley was absolutely fantastic for the D-backs as he has been for them for most of the season coming out of the bullpen. He threw six scoreless innings only allowing two hits and a walk while striking out seven. He had the Phillies off-balance for the entire game with a low-90s fastball and a devastating change-up that he threw for strikes on a consistent basis. Brad Ziegler and freshly called-up from triple-A Jonathan Albaladejo pitched scoreless innings in the seventh and eighth.

But the shutout was ruined when left-hander Joe Paterson, struggling so far this year, came into the ninth with a 9-0 lead and proceeded to give up five runs without recording an out. It cut the lead enough that it forced Manager Kirk Gibson to bring in oft-used Craig Breslow and start getting closer J.J. Putz loose in the bullpen.

But Breslow was able to close out the game and finish off the Phillies in what should have been a laugher for D-backs fans but ended with a little bit of anxiety. Miley received the win for the D-backs to increase his record to 2-0 on the season.

There were several important aspects of this game that the D-backs can build on going forward. Most importantly, they won consecutive games for the first time in a week. But getting Upton hitting has to be a priority with Chris Young on the DL for an indefinite amount of time. Upton did not even have and RBI coming into the game but recorded two tonight. It is vital that Upton, the D-backs best hitter, starts to drive in runs in bunches like he is capable of doing.

Furthermore, tonight was another great showing for Miley but it was also encouraging to see him strike out seven batters. In his three previous appearances, Miley threw 8.2 innings but only struck out two while walking four. That type of k/9 rate or k/bb rate is not a good sign of success to come. But tonight, he struck out seven while only walking one. If Miley can continue to strike out people, he should be a great weapon for the D-backs out of the bullpen.