Padres go for another sweep of Arizona

Baseball Betting Lines

07/18/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The National League West-leading San Diego Padres will shoot for the second straight three-game sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks when the two division foes close out their set today at Petco Park.

San Diego has won three in a row overall and the first two installments of this series, and won all three matchups with Arizona from April 16-18 this season. The Padres are 6-2 against the D'Backs in 2010 and are unbeaten in the past four contests as the host.

In Saturday's 8-5 victory over Arizona, Yorvit Torrealba belted a two-run homer and finished with four RBI, while Jerry Hairston Jr., Adrian Gonzalez and Tony Gwynn Jr. each added a solo shot for the Padres, who are 3 1/2 games ahead of San Francisco for NL West bragging rights. Gwynn's was his second inside-the-park home run of the season.

"The last eight or nine games, we've really been able to put some runs on the board," Gwynn said on the team's site.

Clayton Richard was lucky to get the win despite giving up five runs and nine hits in 6 1/3 innings. Ryan Webb, Joe Thatcher, Luke Gregerson and closer Heath Bell held the D'Backs scoreless the rest of the way, with Bell registering his 25th save.

Padres starting pitcher Kevin Correia has been struggling since opening the 2010 campaign 4-1 with a 3.86 earned run average in five starts, and is slated to take the hill Sunday. He is only 1-5 with a 5.88 ERA in the past 12 outings and did not figure into the decision of a 10-8 loss at Colorado the last time out on July 9.

Correia was reached for five runs and seven hits through five innings, just one start after firing seven shutout innings in a 1-0 win versus Houston for a no-decision. The right-hander, who is 5-6 overall in 17 starts, is 1-1 in two starts against Arizona this season. Correia owns a 3-6 mark in 20 career games (11 starts) in this series.

Arizona has lost three straight and nine of its last 11 games, and received another poor start from Rodrigo Lopez. Lopez yielded six runs on six hits and three walks in six innings of work to fall to 5-8 this season.

"Definitely a big disappointment for me," Lopez said on the team's website "I was trying to step up for my team after losing the first game of the second half last night."

Chris Young recorded three hits, including a home run, and Adam LaRoche knocked in two runs for the Diamondbacks, who are last in the division at 19 1/2 games off the pace.

Edwin Jackson will try to get himself and the team back into the win column when he toes the rubber for Arizona this afternoon. Jackson was riding a personal three-game winning streak before running into the Chicago Cubs on July 7 in an 8-3 setback.

Jackson gave up five runs and six hits in five frames to fall to 6-7 in 18 starts to go along with a 4.92 earned run average. The righty, who is also 3-3 in eight road starts this season, owns an 0-1 record in two starts against the Padres this season.

Overall, Jackson is 0-2 with a 5.31 ERA in six games (4 starts) in this series.

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It's less than a month until the NHL hockey betting season opens at MySportsbook.com and preparations are underway for another battle in the race to hoist Lord Stanley's mug in 2007.

As cup crazy fans prepare to place their bets, one online sportsbook ,MySportsbook.com, is offering hockey betting lines on the 2007/2007 Stanley Cup , who will bring it home this upcoming season.

Despite a poor showing in last season's playoffs and the loss of Steve Yzerman to retirement, the Detroit Red Wings are early favourites at this online sportsbook with wagering odds of 6-1. The Wings will look to offensive powerhouse Pavel Datsyuk and newly appointed captain Nicklas Lidstrom to lead one of the league's most prominent franchises.

Always a threat are the Ottawa Senators, with newly acquired goaltender Martin Gerber from the Stanley Cup champion ,Carolina Hurricanes. The Sens are second best in the rankings at a 7-1 bet, and odds makers at this sportsbook are optimistic that the Ottawa squad will fare better than last season's Eastern Conference semi-final upset to the Buffalo Sabres.

Also worth noting are the defending Stanley Cup champs Carolina Hurricanes, a 10-1 bet to repeat. Behind the Canes are the New Jersey Devils, Calgary Flames, Buffalo Sabres, Philadelphia Flyers, and Anaheim Mighty Ducks all sit at 12-1. In the basement are the Washington Capitals, Chicago Blackhawks, and St. Louis Blues who all have 100-1 odds to win.

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your hockey betting needs.

FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash 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.