DENVER – Sometime Thursday Diamondbacks General Manager Kevin Towers is scheduled to arrive at Coors Field, where he will sit down with manager Kirk Gibson. The two enjoy each other’s company and are quick to share a laugh, but when the subject turns to their struggling baseball team, there will be little for them to find humorous.

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At the beginning of the week, Gibson cryptically mentioned “adjustments” to the roster, about changes that might need to happen to jumpstart his middling team. Towers isn’t exactly known for his patience, and so it will be interesting to see what, if anything, happens in aftermath of another dispiriting loss.

“We’re going to sit down and talk about some things,” Gibson said before the Diamondbacks’ 6-1 loss to the Colorado Rockies.

Rookie left-hander Pat Corbin was roughed up, but once again, the offense was muzzled, but this time it was a 49-year-old left-hander with a fastball in the upper-70s who held them in check. And not only did Jamie Moyer give up just one run in 61/3 innings, not only did he strike out five, he also hustled to first base to beat out an infield hit in one of night’s more-important moments.

Yes, Moyer still is pitching. Yes, his fastball topped at 80 mph. And, yes, his one-arm swing wound up producing a dribbler that drove home two runs.

If this sounds repetitive, that’s because it is: The Diamondbacks found ways to get guys on base but couldn’t find ways to get them home. They had a one day reprieve from scoring position troubles, but opened up this quick two-game series with the Rockies by going 1 for 10 in those situations.

“We had some opportunities and we didn’t make very good use of those,” Gibson said.

For a team eager to break out of a slump, there might be no worse pitcher to face than Moyer, who feeds on hitters’ aggressiveness. That’s what seemed to be happening on Wednesday as Moyer recorded 10 ground-ball outs.

“He had us out on our front foot,” Gibson said, “and we hit a lot of ground balls off him and five strikeouts as well.”

Said first baseman Paul Goldschmidt: “He was just mixing it up and keeping the ball down. Even when he misses or gets behind in the count, it’s usually balls that are away, below your knees or in the dirt.”

The offense doesn’t deserve all the blame, not on a night when Corbin was charged with six runs in six innings.

But he had a peculiar night. There were a handful of softly hit balls that found holes, but there were also several rockets off the bat of Rockies’ hitters, including a two-run triple by Dexter Fowler that keyed Colorado’s three-run second inning.

“I thought I made some pretty good pitches and they kind of found some spots,” he said. “That’s kind of how baseball goes.”

It hasn’t been going good for the Diamondbacks, who have lost 11 of their past 14 games.

“We always discuss things,” Gibson said after the game when asked if his team might need a shakeup to get going. “If we felt that that would be the case, I think we would do that, but I’m not sure we have resolution on what we might do at this point.”

View from the press box

When asked if they might consider shaking things up with their roster, Kirk Gibson seemed to say that there were no easy answers, either because there were no players who are obvious candidates to be sent down or because there were none banging on the door to be called up. Ryan Roberts has struggled, but he’s been a little more productive lately. Paul Goldschmidt hasn’t done much, but he did hit a couple balls hard. It’ll be interesting to see how patient the Diamondbacks can be if they continue to struggle to score runs.

Rewind

Confusion at first: With runners on second and third in the fourth, Rockies pitcher Jamie Moyer took an off-balance, one-armed swing, rolling a grounder to the right side.

The ball wound up in no-man’s land — right between pitcher Pat Corbin and first baseman Paul Goldschmidt — and by the time Goldschmidt picked it up and reached to tag Moyer, the play was close enough for the Rockies to get the benefit of the doubt.

Replays appeared to show Goldschmidt’s glove barely grazing Moyer’s side.

“I thought I got a piece of him,” Goldschmidt said. “It wasn’t one of those plays where I crushed his leg or anything like that, but that’s how it goes sometimes.”

Missed chances: The Diamondbacks had two on and one out in the second but failed to score. They had the same situation in the third, but Jason Kubel bounced into a double play. Goldschmidt doubled to start the fourth but was stranded.

By the end of that inning, the Diamondbacks were down 4-0.

“You’ve got to put stuff together,” Gibson said. “That’s what we were unable to do.”

Staying put: If there’s a bright spot, it could be that the Diamondbacks didn’t lose ground in the NL West. They remain 8 1/2 games back of the Dodgers, who lost earlier in the day to the Padres.

DENVER – The jammed left thumb that kept Justin Upton out of the Diamondbacks lineup earlier this week is still “bothering him considerably,” manager Kirk Gibson said.

But after not starting Tuesday’s game, Upton was back in the lineup for the third consecutive game Friday against the Colorado Rockies.

“I think it’s pretty considerable,” Gibson said. “But we’ve got a game tonight. It’s nice and cold out. Enjoy the pain.”

Gibson said Upton hasn’t participated in regular batting practice the past two days, a way to ease the stress on the thumb, which he injured while sliding hard into second base Sunday at Chase Field.

“Just going to go play,” Gibson said. “The reality of it is, in a way it’s good. I played with a guy who didn’t take BP one time for three-quarters of the season and he raked — Lou Whitaker.

“Sometimes you take too much and you get too technical and it works against you. He’s been grinding on it. He hasn’t hit the ball the way he can. It’s the way we have to deal with it.”

Upton has been hitting with padding around the thumb to minimize the pain. Gibson was asked if the injury will heal despite Upton playing.

“It should,” Gibson said. “But he’s beating on it every day, so it’s not going to heal as quick as it would normally. If he were a writer, it would heal a lot quicker.”

Collmenter’s turn

Right-hander Josh Collmenter’s rough spring training and shaky first start has put him under the spotlight Saturday night, when he’ll try to rediscover the form that made him one of the Diamondbacks’ better pitchers last season.

General Manager Kevin Towers said it’s all about locating his pitches better and keeping himself out of counts in which hitters can sit on a certain pitch.

Asked if Collmenter’s struggles from the spring might shorten his leash in the regular season, Towers said, “We want to win as many games as we can. I think we’ll judge it like we do with everybody. With every pitcher, we take it outing by outing.”

Towers said the team isn’t going to pull the plug after one bad start, but he mentioned other options the organization has, including long reliever Wade Miley, the club’s Double-A prospects and its more experienced Triple-A staff.

“Do we give him another start? A couple more starts?” Towers asked. “As of right now, he’s one of our five, and I’m hoping he’s going to put together a good start tomorrow and we don’t have to answers questions about him.”

Saito update

Reliever Takashi Saito threw a perfect inning in extended spring training, striking out two and throwing 10 pitches.

Towers said Saito might pitch once more, perhaps Monday, before the club looks to activate him from the disabled list, at which point the team will have a difficult decision.

“That’s a good position to be in,” Towers said. “Everybody’s kind of throwing the ball fairly well up here. Ultimately when he comes back there will be an odd man out, which maybe the person isn’t deserving of going down, but you need depth.”

If they tried to go without a long man, that would mean sending out Miley, who tossed four hitless innings Sunday. Right-hander Brad Ziegler, who has options, had a shaky spring and a rough debut outing, but he put up a scoreless inning Thursday.

There are about three weeks remaining in spring training and not only is Diamondbacks shortstop Stephen Drew yet to play in a Cactus League game, he hasn’t even hit outside of a batting cage.

He hasn’t run at full speed. He hasn’t tried to slide. He hasn’t run the bases, hasn’t accelerated or decelerated at game speed. Heck, Drew hasn’t even advanced to the point where he can go through four consecutive days of workouts.

This isn’t a knock on Drew, who has been limited by a surgically repaired ankle that doctors told him could take a full year to return to full strength.

It’s just evidence that Drew probably isn’t going to be ready by Opening Day, something that Diamondbacks officials, and even Drew, have hinted at but haven’t made official.

“I’d still say we’re a ways off before he plays in a game,” Diamondbacks General Manager Kevin Towers said. “You guys can probably figure it out. I don’t want to say never, but we’re not even at the point yet of where we’re going to put him in a game.”

That hasn’t stopped manager Kirk Gibson from joking with Drew, telling him this week he’s planning to have him in the lineup on Thursday. He told reporters the same thing Tuesday morning.

“Just kidding,” he added quickly. “That’s what I tell him. He starts laughing.”

Drew says he has made progress since camp opened. But it’s been more of a jagged line of improvement than a straight one; some days the ankle is sore and needs rest, and Drew has been forced to comply.

“It’s still taking time,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s coming along pretty well.”

Drew caused all sorts of damage in his right ankle July 20 when his cleat caught in the dirt on a slide into home and his foot bent awkwardly.

Gibson said there are plans to be more aggressive with Drew this week. The club might have him run the bases and perhaps step in against minor-league pitchers on the back fields of the team’s complex.

Drew began spring training working two consecutive days on the field before taking the third off. He’s progressed to working three in a row.

He says the ankle still needs the day of rest, but neither he nor the team wants this kind of schedule during the season.

“When I come back, I want to play every day,” Drew said. “That’s the way I look at it. … I want to go out there and play like I always have.”

Towers said he has “no timetable” on Drew’s recovery and Gibson said the team “hasn’t really gotten to that point” of discussing whether Drew might be ready for Opening Day. Drew said he wishes he knew the answer.

“You’ve got to run bases and feel really comfortable doing those type of things,” he said. “Because the game speed, it’s fast. People don’t realize that when you’re out there. I haven’t even played in spring training games. Right now, I don’t know. It would have to happen really fast, progression-wise, like running and stuff like that, where I haven’t even done it yet.”

Said Towers: “I think the deeper you get into the spring, it becomes a little less likely. He hasn’t played in eight, nine months. He’s going to need to see quite a bit of live pitching to get comfortable and get his timing back. Game speed is a lot different than going out and taking ground balls and swinging in the cage.”