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Diamondbacks' Owings hopes to end skid

Jul 9, 2008 - 1:05 PM Arizona (45-45) at Washington (34-57), 7:10 pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Ticker) -- Micah Owings shoots for his first win in over a month and the Arizona Diamondbacks go for their third straight victory when they face the lowly Washington Nationals on Wednesday in the middle contest of a three-game series.

Owings (6-7, 5.15 ERA) has not won since May 25, going 0-5 with an 8.10 ERA in that span. The righthander's skid started against the Nationals when he was tagged for six runs and eight hits over 6 1/3 frames in a 7-4 loss on May 30.

The 25-year-old Owings may be a little rusty. After lasting just four innings on June 27 in his last start, Owings retired two batters in a relief appearance on Friday.

The Diamondbacks capitalized on a pair of fielding miscues en route to a 2-0 victory over the Nationals on Tuesday. Arizona opened the scoring in the third after Chris Burke reached on shortstop Cristian Guzman's

throwing error. After advancing to second a balk, Burke scored on Chris Young's RBI single.

The Diamondbacks used more shaky fielding to double its advantage in the sixth. Robby Hammock smacked a base hit up the middle that Nationals center fielder Roger Bernadina could not handle and the ball went all the way to the wall, allowing Mark Reynolds to score from first.

John Lannon (4-9, 3.60) will hope for a little more production from the Washington offense, which has been shutout a major league-worst 11 times this season.

The 23-year-old also has found wins difficult to come by, failing to pick up a victory since May 18. The Nationals are 0-7 when Lannon takes the mound in that span, despite the lefthander allowing more than three runs only once during that stretch.