Greinke, D-backs shut out slumping Braves

Diamondbacks pitcher Zack Greinke is on his best roll of the season, while Sean Newcomb and the slumping Braves are stumbling into the All-Star break. The Braves presented no problems for Greinke on a steamy Saturday afternoon at sold-out SunTrust Park, where the right-hander allowed four hits over 7⅔ innings of a 3-0 Arizona win that assured the Braves of a series loss heading into the All-Star break. The Braves, who’ll try to avoid a sweep in Sunday’s series finale, have lost eight of their past 10 games. The slide began after they swept the Cardinals at St. Louis and won a series opener at Yankee Stadium to move to a season-high 15 games over .500 (49-34). Newcomb was pulled after giving up a two-out solo homer to Ketel Marte in the sixth inning that extended the Diamondbacks’ lead to 3-0. The big left-hander gave up four hits, three runs and three walks in 5⅔ innings and matched his season low with two strikeouts. The Diamondbacks had a plan against Newcomb, whose command has waned in recent starts. He threw 102 pitches and the Diamondbacks swung and missed only two of them. Yes, just two swinging strikes in his total 64 strikes. The slumping Braves couldn’t have picked a worst time to face Greinke, who had the Braves under his thumb from the outset Saturday. Greinke (10-5) limited the Braves to four hits with no walks and seven strikeouts, improving to 4-0 with a 1.14 ERA in his past five starts. He has 29 strikeouts and only four walks in that torrid stretch. The Diamondbacks have won nine of his past 12 starts. Contrast that with Newcomb, who’s 1-4 with a 5.45 ERA and eight homers allowed in his past seven starts, after going 7-1 with a 2.49 ERA and three homers allowed in his first 12 starts. The Braves gave him almost no offensive support Saturday, as Braves bats remained in a deep freeze. After hitting .275 with a .778 OPS and five multi-homer games in a 13-game stretch through July, the Braves have hit under .240 with an OPS more than 100 points lower in their past nine games and gone without a homer in seven of the past eight games. After going 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position in a 2-1 loss to the Diamondbacks in Friday’s series opener, the Braves only had four at-bats with a runner in scoring position Saturday and went hitless in those opportunities. They have a puny .185 average (15-for-81) with runners in scoring position during their 10-game slide. Considering the fact that Newcomb walked three of the first four batters he faced and threw 36 pitches in the first inning, things could have been a lot worse for the young lefty. But after giving up a Steven Sousa bases-loaded single to drive in one run, he induced a pop-up from Marte and struck out Chris Owings to get out of first inning without further damage. Newcomb retired 10 consecutive batters between Sousa’s first-inning single and Owings’ two-out single in the fourth, but Mathis followed Owings with a double off the left-field wall that pushed the lead to 2-0. Newcomb retired the next six D-backs, including four ground-outs before Marte hit one in the air to the monkey grass above the left-field fence. Newcomb (8-5) has 29 strikeouts and 19 walks in 36⅓ innings in his past seven starts, after totaling 68 strikeouts with 33 walks in 68⅔ innings in his first 12.

SCOTT CUNNINGHAM / GETTY IMAGES Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson fields a second-inning ground ball Saturday against the Diamondbacks at sold-out SunTrust Park.