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Kuroda sparkles on mound as Dodgers blank MetsBaseball Betting Lines07/23/2010 - Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Hiroki Kuroda threw eight scoreless frames, stonewalling an already befuddled Mets offense, as the Dodgers blanked New York, 2-0, in the first of four games at Chavez Ravine. Kuroda (8-8) scattered five hits with four strikeouts and one walk, lowering his earned run average to 3.48. The right-hander also beat the Mets for the first time in five career starts. Hong-Chih Kuo pitched the ninth for his third save of the season. Matt Kemp went 2-for-3 with a solo home run and two RBI for the Dodgers, who have won two in a row after a six-game losing streak. Hisanori Takahashi (7-5) was the hard-luck loser, giving up just two runs on three hits with five strikeouts and two walks over seven frames. Jeff Francoeur had two hits in New York's fourth straight setback, dropping it a half-game behind Philadelphia and into third place in the National League East. New York has lost seven of eight to start an 11-game, three-city west coast trip. The offensive statistics bare the brunt of the bad news, as the Mets have been held to four runs or less in 13 straight games, going 3-10 over that span. The Mets have scored seven runs during their current four-game skid. The Dodgers got all of the runs they needed to the home first as Jamey Carroll walked and scored when Kemp clubbed an 0-2 pitch past Angel Pagan in center for a double. New York's biggest threat came in the fifth as back-to-back one-out singles from Francoeur and Chris Carter set up Josh Thole, but Kuroda struck him out looking. The right-hander then intentionally walked Luis Castillo to get to the pitcher Takahashi, who grounded into a force out. Kemp was at it again in the seventh with a home run that cleared the wall in left-center field. Kuo walked David Wright with one out in the ninth, but then struck out Ike Davis and retired Francoeur on a ground ball. Game Notes Kemp's home run was his 17th of the season...The Mets are just 5-13 in July after a successful 18-8 June record...Mets outfielder Jason Bay got the night off. Bay is mired in a 4-for-36 slump with just three multi-hit games since June 18...The Dodgers won all three meetings with the Mets at Chavez Ravine last season. Kuo has not given up a run in 16 1/3 innings pitched at home this season.
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Seattle, WA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Eric Patterson's two-run double in the 13th inning lifted the Red Sox to a wild 8-6 win over the Seattle Mariners to open a four-game series. Boston's John Lackey came within four outs of a no-hitter, b
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FOOTBALL TRASH TALKNFL 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. |
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