These days, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ offense is mirroring the desert climate of the team’s home: dry.

The Diamondbacks have lost six of their past seven games. They’ve scored just 12 total runs in those losses and have been shut out twice.

They’ll aim to get it back on track Friday night when they face the New York Mets in the first contest of a three-game series in Phoenix.

In their most recent setback, the Diamondbacks fell 4-2 to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday in the rubber match of a three-game set.

Arizona appeared to find some life offensively in the opener of that series with a 9-0 victory on Tuesday, only to get blanked 1-0 the next night.

“We’ve got to get back to our basics and some of the things that we really, really believe in,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “… But overall, I believe in this offense, and I see them working every single day, and those results will come, but it doesn’t happen by just going up there and believing it’s going to happen. You got to make it happen.”

Right fielder Corbin Carroll delivered two of his team’s five hits on Thursday, including a solo homer that put Arizona ahead 2-1 in the bottom of the third inning. The Diamondbacks struggled to get on base from that point on, going out in order in each of the next three innings before leading off their half of the seventh with a single. They had one more hit in the eighth.

“Once again, I think this was mostly an offensive issue that I’m going to kind of talk about and target,” Lovullo said. “This game is hard, for sure. It’s hard to hit, it’s hard to pitch, hard to catch, hard to do everything, but we’re making it way harder than it should be.”

Right-hander Ryne Nelson (1-3, 6.61 ERA) will be on the mound on Friday for Arizona.

Nelson is 1-3 with a 5.86 ERA in six career appearances (five starts) against New York. That lone win came on April 8 when he allowed just one run on five hits with five strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings of a 7-2 victory.

The Mets, meanwhile, will look to bounce back from a 6-2 loss to the Colorado Rockies on Thursday that ended a three-game winning streak.

New York had a two-run lead after two innings. Colorado’s Jake McCarthy helped sink the Mets, driving in the game-tying run in the sixth before mashing a grand slam in the eighth to complete the comeback.

The home run was met with some question, however. The ball sailed over the right-field foul pole and was deemed fair, a call that stood after a crew-chief review.

“It was close,” New York manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Especially from our angle, I couldn’t tell. … It just didn’t go our way there.”

Mendoza went to his bullpen in the fifth inning after starter Christian Scott threw 82 pitches. Mendoza was managing Scott’s pitch count after the right-hander missed all of last season while recovering from Tommy John surgery.

Mendoza hopes to count on a longer run for right-hander Nolan McLean (1-2, 2.97 ERA), who will start for the Mets on Friday. McLean has faced Arizona once in his career, allowing two runs on three hits in 6 1/3 innings in a 7-1 loss on April 9.

–Field Level Media

These days, it doesn’t matter who the St. Louis Cardinals play.

“With the way we’re playing, right now, I’m comfortable playing just about anybody,” St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol said of his team, which is 8-2 in its past 10 games. “It has more to do with the consistency right now than anything.”

That consistency continued Thursday night in the Cardinals’ 2-1 win over the San Diego Padres to start a seven-game road trip.

St. Louis will try to make it two straight victories against the Padres on Friday night.

The Cardinals won with pitching and defense on Thursday. Matthew Liberatore gave up one run on three hits over six innings, and the bullpen gave up only one hit over three shutout innings.

It was a departure from most of the Cardinals’ recent wins, which have been built around an offense that has kept steady pressure on the opposition. St. Louis managed just five hits in the series opener, although one was Alec Burleson’s sixth homer of the season and another was Masyn Winn’s go-ahead RBI triple in the seventh inning.

But it still was enough to boost the Cardinals’ road record to 12-5.

“We have the same mindset every day where we’re trying to play hard, play the right way and win games,” Burleson said. “We just show up and do the things that we do — and it’s worked out for us on the road so far.”

It’s also worked out for the Cardinals when right-hander Michael McGreevy (2-2, 2.52 ERA) takes the mound. He tossed six shutout innings Saturday night during a 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers, permitting only three hits and three walks while striking out three.

McGreevy, 25, has faced San Diego twice in his young career, going 1-1 with a 9.28 ERA and allowing 16 hits over 10 2/3 innings.

Opposing McGreevy will be 29-year-old right-hander Griffin Canning (0-0, 1.80 ERA), whose first start with the Padres on Sunday consisted of five good innings against the Chicago White Sox in his team’s 4-3 win. Canning gave up one run on three hits while striking out seven in his first MLB game since suffering a season-ending Achilles injury last June with the New York Mets.

In four career starts against St. Louis, Canning is 3-1 with a 3.63 ERA. That includes a win in April 2025 when he pitched for the Mets, a 4-1 decision in which he recorded eight strikeouts in six innings.

Manager Craig Stammen said Canning’s initial start for San Diego, which saw him strike out the last four men he faced, was what he envisioned.

“He has the potential to be someone we can rely on,” Stammen said. “This is one start for him. He’s coming off a major injury. There’s bound to be hiccups. But he’s off to a good start.”

Which is more than can be said for the inconsistent hitters. After showing signs of life with 15 runs on 20 hits in the last two games of their series in San Francisco this week, the Padres managed only four hits Thursday night. Half of those were in the first inning.

Mainstays such as Manny Machado (.202), Jackson Merrill (.230) and Fernando Tatis Jr. (.252) continue to hit far below their career averages. And Tatis’ homerless streak to start the year is up to 135 at-bats.

–Field Level Media

San Francisco Bay Area baseball fans will get their first up-close look at Pittsburgh prized rookie Konnor Griffin when the Giants host the Pirates in a three-game series that begins Friday night.

Griffin, who made his MLB debut as a 19-year-old early last month, arrives in San Francisco on a nice run. He has hits in eight of his last nine games, raising his batting average from .213 to .257.

“It’s been good to get settled in,” said Griffin, who played just 127 games of minor-league ball before his promotion less than two years after he was drafted ninth overall by the Pirates straight out of high school.

“Just a good locker room,” he added. “Everybody supports you. I’m just glad to be out there every day, working hard and doing what I love.”

The shortstop appears to have settled in on the road as well. After starting his big-league career 1-for-22 there, he has rebounded to go 7-for-20 against the Milwaukee Brewers and Arizona Diamondbacks away from home.

Griffin has yet to face the Giants’ Friday probable starter, left-hander Robbie Ray (2-4, 2.95 ERA), who hasn’t allowed more than three runs in any of his seven starts this season. Ray, however, has a losing record, with the Giants having been shut out in three of his four losses — including 3-0 at Tampa Bay last Friday.

Ray, 34, is 2-2 with a 4.50 ERA in seven career starts against the Pirates, who have won five of their past six games.

Scheduled Pittsburgh starter Carmen Mlodzinski (2-2, 4.76 ERA) benefited from his team’s 19-hit assault in a 17-7 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday in his most recent outing. The right-hander won despite allowing five runs for a third consecutive start, a stretch that followed yielding a total of four runs over his first four outings of the season.

Mlodzinski, 27, has yet to start a game in San Francisco. Overall, he has faced the Giants five times — all in relief — and is 0-2 with a 6.00 ERA.

Mlodzinski will try to keep the Giants’ Willy Adames in a slump. The shortstop has a hit in only 10 of his last 78 at-bats, with no homers or RBIs as his batting average has plummeted to .194.

The Giants have scored just 18 runs in their last nine games, losing eight times.

Manager Tony Vitello has cautioned his players that no starting spot is guaranteed. In fact, he sat third baseman Matt Chapman on Tuesday and second baseman Luis Arraez on Wednesday so that he could find a spot for his hottest hitter, Casey Schmitt.

Schmitt, who homered twice in the just-completed series against the San Diego Padres, also can play shortstop. The Giants lost two of three games in the home set to San Diego.

Vitello said he believes resting veteran players can be for their own good.

“There’s going to be days where they’re not playing,” Vitello said earlier this week, “but the benefit of that is that when they are playing, they’re not going to have any excuses. Not that they have, but they’re going to be fresh of mind and fresh of body.”

–Field Level Media