Billingsley’s skid goes on

Right-hander loses fifth consecutive start, the worst streak of his career.

PHOENIX — Chad Billingsley will enter the AllStar break on the worst losing streak of his career.

Billingsley was the losing pitcher in each of his last five starts, the most recent a 5-3 defeat to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday at Chase Field.

Billingsley’s performance typified his season: not awful, not great.

He was charged with four runs and six hits in six innings against the Diamondbacks.

“That’s what we’ve kind of seen,” Manager Don Mattingly said. “It’s not like you look at it and go, ‘That’s terrible.’ It’s always just kind of OK.”

This marked the fourth time during his unprecedented losing streak that Billingsley completed six innings. Twice, he held the opposition to three runs. The two other times, he gave up four earned runs.

Aside from a mess of a start in Anaheim on June 22, in which he gave up six runs and 10 hits in five innings, Billingsley has been perfectly ordinary.

Or, as Billingsley said, “It’s baseball.”

He will head into the second half of the season with a 4-9 record and 4.30 earnedrun average.

The Dodgers will head into their final game before the All-Star break with a lead of half a game over the San Francisco Giants, who lost Saturday.

The Dodgers are viewing the All-Star break as a new start of sorts, as they are expecting to activate outfielders Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier from the disabled list when they come out of it. Billingsley is counting on them to help turn his season around.

“We’ll be a new team,” Billingsley said.

The return of their two best hitters will spare the Dodgers from having to field lineups like the one they did Saturday night.

Leading off was Elian Herrera, who was in his 10th season in the Dodgers farm system when he was called up to the majors for the first time in May.

Luis Cruz, promoted from triple A a few days ago, batted second.

Utilityman Jerry Hairston Jr. batted third. James Loney, whose lack of productivity landed him on the bench as recently as a two weeks ago, batted cleanup.

Not counting the pitcher’s spot, the lineup was the 72nd different one used by Mattingly this season. The Dodgers have played 86 games. “Really?” Mattingly said. But the Dodgers got ahead in the first inning, as Hairston hit a two-run home run against Trevor Cahill.

From that point on, the Dodgers’ bats turned predictably silent.

Over the next five innings, only one Dodger reached scoring position — with two outs, in the fourth inning. That threat ended when Scott Van Slyke grounded into a force out.

Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks found a way to get to Billingsley.

Billingsley struck out Cahill in the third inning for his 1,000th strikeout. He became only the 12th Dodger to reach the milestone since the team moved to Los Angeles in 1958.

But he started to unravel soon after.

Billingsley started the fifth inning by serving up a double to Miguel Montero and a single to Geoff Blum.

Adouble by Gerardo Parra drove in both runners. Parra scored on a sacrifice fly by Stephen Drew to move the Diamondbacks ahead, 3-2.

The Diamondbacks added a run in the sixth inning when Justin Upton doubled and scored on a sacrifice fly by Paul Goldschmidt.

A.J. Ellis hit ahome run in the seventh inning to move the Dodgers to within 4-3.

The home run was Ellis’ seventh on the season, most among the Dodgers’ active players.