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06/13/2010 - Detroit, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Miguel Cabrera hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the eighth inning as the Detroit Tigers completed a three-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates with a 4-3 win at Comerica Park.
Alex Avila added a solo shot for Detroit, which has won four of their last six and improved to 32-6 in their last 38 interleague games at home and an impressive 127-108 all-time in interleague play.
Brad Thomas (4-0) earned the win for retiring the final batter in the top of the eighth. Detroit starter Armando Galarraga allowed only two runs on six hits with one walk over 7 2/3 innings. Jose Valverde picked up his 13th save of the season despite giving up a run in the ninth inning which snapped his scoreless streak at 26 innings.
Garrett Jones hit a solo homer and knocked in a pair for the Pirates, who have dropped a major league-high eight straight games. Delwyn Young drove in a run with a sacrifice fly.
Javier Lopez (1-1) took the loss after being charged with one run in the eighth and walking the only batter he faced. Jeff Karstens got the starting nod for the Pirates and worked seven-plus innings, allowing six hits, two runs and one walk with three strikeouts.
In the bottom of the eighth and Pittsburgh clinging to a 2-1 lead, pinch- hitter Carlos Guillen got the inning started with a single and Karstens was lifted in favor of D.J. Carrasco, who set down Ryan Raburn and uncorked a wild pitch before striking out Ramon Santiago.
Lopez was summoned from the bullpen and walked Johnny Damon. The Pirates then turned to closer Octavio Dotel, who hung a 1-1 cutter to Cabrera and the power-hitting first baseman hammered it over the right-center field wall for a 4-2 Tigers advantage.
Valverde took over in the top of the ninth and surrendered a leadoff double to Ryan Doumit, who advanced to third on a groundout and crossed the plate on Young's sac fly. Pinch-hitter Akinori Iwamura flied out to center to end the game.
Jones' lead off homer to right in the second gave the Pirates the early lead. Then in the fourth, Jones' ground-rule double plated Andrew McCutchen, who reached on an infield single and went to second on a balk to make it 2-0.
Karstens kept the Tigers off the board until the seventh when Avila crushed a first-pitch sinker with two outs over the wall in straightaway center.
Galarraga issued a two-out single to McCutchen in the eighth, which signaled the end of the afternoon for the right-hander. Thomas came in and retired Jones on a groundout to second.
Game Notes
Tigers center fielder Austin Jackson (back spasms) exited the game after a half inning...Detroit was also without right fielder Magglio Ordonez (strained oblique)...Pittsburgh fell to a major league-worst 71-113 in interleague play.
<< Hawks name Drew head coach
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Eastbourne, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Fifth-seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez
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Estoril, Portugal (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Denmark's Thomas Bjorn shot a four-under
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Unites States cruises to Curtis Cup title >>
Manchester, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The United States won its seventh
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Cleveland, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Roger Bernadina celebrated his 26th
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Pelfrey, homers help Mets complete sweep of O's >>
Baltimore, MD (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - David Wright blasted a pair of two-run
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Pelfrey (9-1) went si
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.
Rule No. 1 in the gamblers' handbook states, "Avoid sports betting on meaningless games."
When you're drowning in a sea of baseball monotony, however, things change. Even a hint of pro football betting can persuade the most disciplined bettor to break a few rules.
The NFL preseason is around the corner, with a tempting Hall of Fame match kicking off on Sunday. But bettors must stay vigilant. Wagering on NFL exhibition games is an entirely different beast than the regular season. Most fans don't recognize the players on the field because starters get as much action in August as Warcraft fans get on Prom night.
The only certainty about the NFL this time of year is uncertainty – and yet there are some who say betting in August can be a gold mine.
“I actually feel the NFL preseason presents solid profit opportunities for sharp bettors and handicappers,” Sports Expert Steve Merril explains. “My experience has been that the sportsbooks fear the preseason, which is evident by lower limits and massive moves.”
The line moves are attributed to the limited knowledge available regarding playing-time distribution. One team’s top unit out on the field for one more series has an impact on the pointspread. Setting lines in the preseason often is a shot in the dark.
“We base the betting lines mostly on public perception,” Pete Korner, founder of the Sports Club in Las Vegas, says. “It’s very tough to predict, almost a guessing game.”
The preseason is all about figuring out who’s in and for how long.
“It becomes a race between bettors and oddsmakers to find out how long the quarterbacks are going to stay in,” Korner admits. “If a sharp gets the information first, he could exploit an early line. I’m a full believer in moving the line in the preseason if the books find out something late in the week.”
Determining what each team’s motive is can help bettors handicap. To do this you must pay close attention to the philosophies head coaches employ in exhibition play.
“You need to know what a coach is trying to accomplish,” says Covers Expert Bryan Leonard. “Sometimes a new coach will want to instill a winning attitude. Others just want to make sure their starters don’t get hurt."
So how do you distinguish who’s playing scared and who’s playing for keeps?
“Head coaches on the hot seat or new coaches trying to implement a winning attitude usually try harder to win in the preseason,” Merril says.
Cleveland Browns head coach Romeo Crennel fits this criteria. He’s entering his third season as the sideline boss and has yet to lead the Browns to more than six wins.
Cleveland is an enticing bet as well because of the unresolved quarterback situation. General manager Phil Savage sacrificed the Browns’ first-round pick in next year’s draft for Brady Quinn, but the former Notre Dame quarterback hasn’t signed or reported to training camp yet.
Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson split time at QB last season and it looks like either player (or even Quinn) could be the opening-day starter.
“If a team has quarterback depth and the pecking order hasn’t been decided, it’s a big advantage,” Leonard says.
Even in the third week of the preseason when starters generally play the most, the final outcome of the game is in the hands of fringe players. A team's talent, all the way down to the last man on the roster, is something to consider.
The New England Patriots have long been considered one of the deeper teams in the NFL and coach Bill Belichick has said in the past he’s unafraid of stars getting hurt in games with nothing on the line. He shocked his colleagues in 2003 by playing some of his starters on special teams in the preseason.
“We want to have the team ready to play a tough, physical game and preparation has to go into that and I imagine a certain amount of injuries go with it,” Belichick told the Providence Journal in August 2003.
Bettors can only hope to find more teams that share the Pats' business-like approach to the preseason (New England is 17-9-3 against the spread since 2000) and take advantage of teams who detest the exhibition schedule.
To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your bet on football needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.
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