Bolstered Padres to begin home set with Marlins
Baseball Betting Lines
07/30/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - A walk-off victory and the acquisition of a six-time All- Star made Thursday one exciting day for the San Diego Padres.
San Diego will hope Friday is just as good, as it is expected to have infielder Miguel Tejada available for tonight's opener of a three-game series against the Florida Marlins, a club that has lost five straight to the Padres.
Owners of a 3 1/2-game lead for first place in the National League West, San Diego began its Thursday by getting Tejada from the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for cash considerations and minor league right-hander Wynn Pelzer. A former American League MVP, the 36-year-old is hitting .269 with seven homers and 39 RBI in 97 games this year and is expected to play both third base and shortstop for his new club.
"Hopefully, [Tejada] can come over here to this situation and contribute somewhere in our lineup," said Padres manager Bud Black.
It is unknown if Tejada will be in the starting lineup tonight.
The good feelings of the bold move made by the Padres front office did not disappear at game time. Looking to claim victory over the Dodgers in the rubber match of a three-game series, Oscar Salazar scored Scott Hairston with a pinch-hit single up the middle with one out to give San Diego a 3-2 victory and series win over Los Angeles.
Chase Headley and Yorvit Torrealba both knocked in a run for the Padres, who have won five of their last six games.
Wade LeBlanc will try to extend the momentum tonight after snapping his personal four-decision losing streak with a victory over Pittsburgh on Sunday. The Padres left-hander gave up three runs on eight hits over six innings, improving to 5-8 with a 3.35 earned run average on the season.
LeBlanc, 25, has made one career start versus the Marlins prior, earning a no- decision on Aug. 29 after yielding four runs in six innings of work.
He won't have to face Jorge Cantu after the Marlins dealt their third baseman to the Texas Rangers for a pair of pitching prospects. Cantu was hitting .262 on the season with 10 homers and 54 RBI.
He went 2-for-4 and twice in Thursday's 5-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants, then was traded following the contest.
Anibal Sanchez was spectacular versus San Francisco, notching his second career shutout, a one-hitter that also featured a walk and eight strikeouts. Sanchez, who engineered a no-hitter back in 2006, gave up a single in the fifth inning on the way to earning his eighth victory of the season.
"Everything was working for [Sanchez]," said Marlins manager Edwin Rodriguez. "He had command of all his pitches, so we knew something good was going to happen today."
Mike Stanton and Ronny Paulino knocked in two runs apiece for the Marlins, who split this four-game series at AT&T Park and have won 11 of their last 17 games overall to get back to .500 at 51-51.
Florida's Chris Volstad will be seeking his first victory since June 13 tonight, having gone 0-2 with a 6.31 ERA in five starts since. The 23-year-old made his first start on Sunday since July 6 after a brief demotion to Triple-A and earned a no-decision versus the Braves, getting charged with three runs on five hits and three walks over six innings of work.
Volstad is 4-8 with a 4.76 ERA on the season and 1-2 with a 6.14 ERA in three career meetings with the Padres. The right-hander lost to them on June 25, allowing three runs on seven hits over six innings while striking out six in the 3-0 setback.
San Diego's five-game win streak over the Marlins includes a three-game sweep in Florida from June 25-27. The Fish did win all three meetings in San Diego a season ago.
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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.