With Valentine rumors swirling, Marlins open set with Padres
Baseball Betting Lines
06/25/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The first-place San Diego Padres continue their early- summer tour of Florida tonight when they venture to Miami to open a three-game set with the Marlins at Sun Life Stadium.
Leading by 2 1/2 games over the San Francisco Giants in the National League's West Division, the Padres won two of three games on the initial stop of the Sunshine State trip in a midweek series with the Tampa Bay Rays.
The Rays salvaged the finale of the series on Thursday, when Kelly Shoppach went 3-for-4 with a solo home run in a 5-3 win.
Oscar Salazar hit a two-run home run while Jerry Hairston Jr. drove in the other run for the Padres, who had a three-game winning streak stopped. Wade LeBlanc (4-5) was tagged with the loss as he gave up four runs on 11 hits over 5 1/3 innings.
Left-hander Clayton Richard gets the call on the mound for the opener with the Marlins and seeks to end a winless drought that's stretched to five starts. The 26-year-old's last win came May 22 at Seattle, when he scattered seven hits and allowed just one run in a 2-1 defeat of the Mariners.
He's 0-2 with three decisions since, including a 5-4 loss to Baltimore on June 19, in which he gave up eight hits and four earned runs in six innings.
Richard, who's 2-1 in five road starts in 2010, has never faced the Marlins.
Florida counters with former first-round pick Chris Volstad, who's won just once in eight starts since May 7. The 16th overall selection in 2005 was 3-2 on the season after a 4-2 win in Washington, but subsequently lost four straight starts in May and has beaten only the Rays in four June outings.
Volstad gave up seven hits and four runs in a no-decision his last time out, lasting 5 2/3 innings in a game the Marlins lost, 9-8, to Tampa Bay on June 19.
Tonight will mark the third game at the helm for interim manager Edwin Rodriguez, who took over when Fredi Gonzalez was fired earlier in the week. His stay, though, could be coming to an end soon, as reports are circulating that the club and Bobby Valentine are on the verge of a deal. One report suggests that Valentine could take over the team as early as Monday.
On Thursday, in Rodriguez's second game, Miguel Tejada hit a three-run homer and finished with four RBI and three runs scored as the Baltimore Orioles avoided a sweep and defeated the Marlins, 11-5, in the finale of a series at Camden Yards.
Dan Uggla finished 4-for-5 and recorded three runs batted in for Florida, which saw its three-game win streak halted. Gaby Sanchez added three hits and two runs scored in the loss.
Florida starter Nate Robertson (5-6) lasted only 2 1/3 innings and was charged with five runs on seven hits.
San Diego took two of three from the Marlins earlier in the year and has won four of the last six meetings.
Wimbledon, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin were each third-round winners on Friday at Wimbledon and will meet next Monday in the round of 16 at the All England Club. The eighth-seeded Clijsters rolled to a
<< Isner bows out quickly after marathon match
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Thiemo De Bakker of the Netherlands took advantage of an o
<< Clijsters cruises into fourth round at Wimbledon
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posted a straight-set victory on Friday at the All England Club.
The eighth-seeded
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New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Television productions tend to embellish on
a fairly regular basis so I must confess snickering a little bit when I
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above its set at M
<< Dodgers finally solve Angels
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Casey Blake and Jamey Carroll
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The woeful Baltimore Orioles enter the weekend with momentum - sort of - when they begin a three-game interleague series with the nearby Washington Nationals tonight at Camden Yards. Baltimore, which has five fewer wins th
No shortage of storylines in opener between Diamondbacks and Rays >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - There are plenty of storylines to choose from this evening
when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Rays begin a three-game set at
Tropicana Field.
Edwin Jackson will be facing the Rays for the first time since being de
Red-hot Rangers go for a dozen in clash with Astros >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Texas Rangers and Josh Hamilton both try to continue
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the Lone Star State-rival Houston Astros at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.
Hamilton has
Angels, Rockies hope to make some noise in Anaheim >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - A pair of 2009 postseason participants seeking to get back
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(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Mets have shown signs of cooling off over the past week
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this evening in the opener of a three-ga
FOOTBALL TRASH TALK
NFL Football Trash TalkTrash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.