Tonight’s lineup: Nomar dropping faster than my portfolio

Actually, it rebounded slightly today after about a week of falling like a lead parachute. Nomar, however, did not rebound. After going 0 for 5 in the six hole, let’s see if he does any better hitting seventh. More importantly, let’s see if anybody hits a ball his way tonight in his second attempt at playing 3B. Everything else is pretty much the same.

SS Furcal
CF Pierre
C Martin
2B Kent
LF Gonzo
1B Loney
3B Nomar
RF Ethier
RH Lowe

Dodgers 6, D-backs 5

Last year, the Dodgers lost 13 of 18 to the Pods and thus had to settle for the wild card when they finished tied with them atop the division. This is not to suggest the Dodgers and D-backs are going to finish tied this year, but if they do, the Dodgers have a good head start to getting the division crown. They have won six of seven from the Snakes, including all four in PHX. The two clubs have 11 games left wth each other, so the Dodgers haven’t clinched the season series yet at all, but it’s definitely a good start. … Dodgers go to 44-33 and move a half-game ahead of the D-backs and Pods. Now back to the Westin, which ISN’T hosting a sorority convention tonight.

The resolution passes

Just got word that the Glendale City Council unanimously passed the resolution authorizing the PHX suburb’s share of the funding for the new spring training complex. The PHX city council is expected to pass it on July 2 and the state of Arizona will meet later in July, when it is expected to pass it also. Frank McCourt and Howard Sunkin are on their way over here from the meeting now, apparently, to tell us all about it. … Both starting pitchers were done after four innings. Staked to a two-run lead, Bills got two quick outs in the bottom of the fourth, walked a batter and gave up a towering home run to Mark Reynolds. He threw 78 pitches, only 44 of them strikes. Dodgers 5, D-backs 5, bottom 5

Loney creeps up on .500

He just keeps on hitting. He just bounced a ball over the head of 1B Conor Jackson and up the RF line for a game-tying, RBI double. After an intentional pass to Ethier, Billingsley — yes, Billingsley — followed with a drive just beyond the reach of a diving Chris Young, scoring Loney and Ethier. It was Bills’ first career extra-base hit. Loney is now 15 for 31, giving him a .484 average since he was called up 16 days ago. And the scary thing is, he is going to be playing every day now, it appears. … Dodgers 5, D-backs 3, top 4

The two faces of Chad Billingsley

For the first two innings, he was remarkably similar to the Billingsley of last year: too many pitches, too many deep counts and too many balls absolutely smoked by D-backs hitters because the worked the count to the point that they had an advantage. In the third, though, he settled in and retired the side in order on very few pitches. Honeycutt or Russ Martin or somebody must have said something to him in the dugout. Loney already has a two-run homer. Nomar hasn’t had a ball hit to him at 3B yet, but he did scoop a one-hop throw from Martin on a force play … By the way, just to clarify something. Despite what you might have read on a competing blog, all of the beat writers who travel with the club on a regular basis learned of Nomar’s move to 3B at the same time, that being when Grady announced it to us in the dugout yesterday during his pregame media session. Until that point, none of us knew about it. So if one of us chooses to claim on his blog that the story “was first reported by” his blog, that simply isn’t true — except in the most technical sense. He got to his computer before I got to mine and clicked on “post” a minute or two before I did. Making a claim like that makes it look like the rest of us weren’t doing our jobs, and that isn’t the case. This is a tough beat, and we all work HARD every single day.