Having been swept for the first time, the Los Angeles Dodgers are hoping that Zack Greinke can get them back on course by adding to his dominance over the San Diego Padres.
Adrian Gonzalez will also try to duplicate his most recent performance against Andrew Cashner on Friday night.
Los Angeles (9-6) had a seven-game winning streak halted Tuesday in San Francisco and also lost the next two matchups, both in walk-off fashion. Pedro Baez couldn't convert his first career save opportunity Thursday, giving up a run in the ninth inning of a 3-2 loss in 10.
The Dodgers are without closer Kenley Jansen until at least mid-May as he recovers from foot surgery.
"We've got a solid bullpen," catcher Yasmani Grandal said. "These things aren't going to happen too many times."
Having Greinke (2-0, 1.83 ERA) on the mound against San Diego (10-7) gives Los Angeles a solid chance to get back in the win column. The right-hander is 4-0 with a 1.80 ERA in eight matchups.
He gave up one run and two hits in six innings against San Diego in his season debut April 7, but the bullpen failed to hold on to a one-run lead in a 7-3 loss.
Greinke has since won back-to-back starts, yielding three runs in 6 2-3 innings to beat visiting Colorado 6-3 on Saturday.
Los Angeles batted .288 and had 63 runs in the first 12 games then hit .202 and scored six times against the Giants. The Dodgers scored 16 runs while taking two of three from the Padres to open the season.
They were at their best in the finale April 8 with Cashner (1-2, 2.65) starting. The right-hander allowed six runs and eight hits in five innings of a 7-4 loss, with Gonzalez hitting three solo homers off him.
Cashner was 1-1 with a 1.32 ERA in his previous six starts against the Dodgers.
Gonzalez went 10 for 13 with five homers in that series. He's batting .475 with seven home runs in a nine-game hit streak against his former team and is 9 for 25 with four homers when facing Cashner.
The six runs Cashner has allowed in two starts since have all been unearned. The Chicago Cubs scored twice in the first inning Sunday before he shut them down over the next five in a 5-2 win.
"I think the mental grind to kind of start the season has definitely been tough," Cashner told MLB's official website "I think today finally I settled down after the first, second innings, really started to make pitches."
The Padres settled for a split in their four-game series in Colorado this week when the lineup couldn't continue its torrid stretch. They totaled five runs in back-to-back losses after batting .314 with 32 runs in their prior four games.
San Diego will get its first look at Dodgers rookie second baseman Alex Guerrero, who is batting .474 with four homers and 12 RBIs in nine games since making his season debut April 11.
