Dodgers hope for sweep of division rival Padres

Baseball Betting Lines

05/16/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The surprising Padres came into this series sitting in first place in the National League West. However, a pair of losses to the Dodgers has quickly reminded them just who the defending division champs are.

San Diego will try to avoid getting swept by Los Angeles at home for the first time in almost nine years this afternoon in the finale of a three-game series at Petco Park.

The Padres finished off a three-game sweep of the Giants earlier this week to move 3 1/2 games ahead of San Francisco in the division standings. They also came into this series five games up on the Dodgers, but San Diego's lead in the division now stands at 1 1/2 over San Francisco and three up on Los Angeles, which has captured the last two NL West crowns.

After dropping a one-run game in the opener on Friday, the Padres fell to the Dodgers last night, 4-1. Los Angeles starter Clayton Kershaw threw seven innings of one-run, three-hit ball with seven strikeouts, while Jamey Carroll had two hits and an RBI.

The victory stretched Los Angeles' longest winning streak of the season to six games. The club has won all five of its games so far on a six-game road trip, a swing that began with a sweep of Arizona.

The Dodgers were able to pick up last night's victory despite playing without early triple-crown threat Andre Ethier, who sustained a fracture on the tip of his right pinkie finger during batting practice. Ethier is slated to see a hand specialist today and leads the majors with a .392 average and 38 RBI, while his 11 homers are tied with Arizona's Kelly Johnson for the most in the NL.

"It's something you certainly don't want to have happen," Dodgers manager Joe Torre said of Ethier's injury. "The season doesn't give you a chance to breathe, just move on and the team we put on the field is the team we have to play with."

Chase Headley drove in the only run for the Padres, who haven't been swept at home by the Dodgers since a four-game series on June 28-July 1, 2001. San Diego was swept in four games at Los Angeles from April 30-May 3 of last season.

Kevin Correia was reinstated from the bereavement list prior to last night's game and gave up five hits and four runs in 5 1/3 innings in defeat. Correia was placed on the bereavement list on Tuesday due to the death of his younger brother Trevor, who died last Saturday after falling from a 60-foot cliff while hiking.

"I know tonight was probably very emotional for him," Padres manager Bud Black said. "But I didn't see that from the time he came in the clubhouse until he left the game. He is a guy, by nature, that is pretty reserved."

Hoping to get the Padres into the win column is Wade LeBlanc. Though he has yet to lose in five starts this year or allow more than two runs in any of his outings, control issues prevented him from picking up a win last time out.

LeBlanc is 2-0 with a 1.61 earned run average on the year, but he lasted just 4 2/3 innings and 94 pitches on Tuesday versus the Giants. LeBlanc did not factor into the decision of his team's 3-2 victory after allowing two runs on six hits and a season-high four walks. Still, San Diego improved to 5-0 when the left-hander starts this season.

LeBlanc, 25, is 1-2 with a 6.27 ERA in four career starts versus the Dodgers, allowing 13 runs, 12 walks and four homers in 18 2/3 innings.

Chad Billingsley appears to have put some of his early-season issues behind him and he seeks a second straight winning start this afternoon for LA.

Billingsley held a 1-0 mark and 7.07 ERA over his first three starts of the year, but he has pitched to a 3.47 ERA over his last four, going 2-2 in that span. He did pick up a victory on Monday in Arizona after holding the Diamondbacks to a pair of runs and a season-low 5 1/3 innings, striking out seven while also matching a season high with four walks.

The 25-year-old righty is now 3-2 with a 4.82 ERA on the season and 8-4 with a 2.71 ERA in 18 career games versus the Padres, 14 of those starts.

The Dodgers won 10 of 18 versus the Padres last year, but San Diego took five of the nine contests played at Petco Park.

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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.

March Madness odds and printable March Madness brackets

With the field of 64/65 set, MySportsbook.com has the Florida Gators as the 4-1 favorite to successfully defend their National Championship.  Men’s Division-1 College Basketball has not seen a team repeat as National Champions since Duke won back to back championships in ’91 & ‘92.  After losing three out of four late in the season, the Gators are full of momentum as they won their last four games by an average of 18 points.  Not surprisingly, right behind the Gators are the other three top seeds: Kansas 5-1, UNC 6-1, and Ohio State 7-1.  Many consider Kansas to be the hottest team in the country, having won 11 straight. With Kansas, it is hard to ignore all of the early exits from the “dance” in recent years.  With an impressive ACC Tournament, UNC ensured themselves the other top seed.  UNC has about as much talent as any other team in the tournament but with a team that’s best players are primarily freshman and sophomores, could youth be a concern.  Behind freshman sensation, Greg Oden, OSU will look to do what their football team failed to do just a few months earlier.  OSU seems to have peeked at the right time, as they currently have a 17 game winning streak.  Since the tournament field was expanded in 1985, there has never been an instance where all four #1 seeds advanced to the Final Four.  It is obvious that each of the top seeds have the talent to make it through to Atlanta.  But as everyone knows, when makes the NCAA Tournament so special are all of the spoilers and “Cinderella” stories that knock off the favorites on a daily basis.

Be sure to logon to MySportsbook.com to see check out all of the early lines and “March Madness” props.  Also be sure to enter the “$10,000,000 Perfect Bracket Contest”. If someone has the skills to predict every winner, they will be set for life and walk away with $10,000,000.  Even if no one can cash in on the Grand Prize, with a $35,000 guaranteed prize pool and a Mazda RX-8 to the first prize winner, Sportsbook.com’s bracket is a must for all “March Madness” fans.

MySportsbook.com’s odds to win the Championship and Regions:

EAST National Championship Region
Arkansas 300-1 50-1
Belmont 1000-1
Boston College 100-1 40-1
Eastern KY 1000-1
George Washington 75-1
Georgetown 10-1 3-2
Marquette 100-1 40-1
Michigan State 100-1 25-1
New Mexico St. 500-1 200-1
UNC 6-1 6-5
Oral Roberts  500-1
Texas 15-1 5-1
Texas Tech 200-1 5-1
USC 75-1 20-1
Vanderbilt 100-1 30-1
Washington State 40-1 15-1
WEST
Duke 50-1 10-1
Florida A&M 1000-1
Gonzaga 200-1  40-1
Holy Cross 300-1
Illinois 300-1 60-1
Indiana 75-1 40-1
Kansas 5-1 13-10
Kentucky 100-1 40-1
Niagara 1000-1
Pittsburgh 40-1 8-1
Southern Ill. 50-1 12-1
UCLA 10-1 3-2
VCU 500-1 100-1
Villanova 100-1 40-1
VA Tech 50-1 15-1
Weber St 1000-1
Wright St 1000-1 300-1
MIDWEST
Arizona 50-1 30-1
Butler 40-1 30-1
Davidson 300-1
Florida 4-1 4-5
Georgia Tech 75-1 25-1
Jackson State 1000-1
Maryland 30-1 6-1
Miami-OH 300-1
Notre Dame 100-1 20-1
ODU 500-1 100-1
Oregon 40-1 6-1
Purdue 300-1 60-1
Texas A&M CC 1000-1
UNLV 100-1 30-1
Winthrop 500-1 100-1
Wisconsin 15-1 7-2
SOUTH
Albany 200-1
BYU 200-1 40-1
Central CT St. 1000-1
Creighton 100-1 35-1
Long Beach St. 500-1 200-1
Louisville 40-1 10-1
Memphis 30-1 4-1
Nevada 75-1 35-1
North Texas 500-1
Ohio State 7-1 6-5
Penn 500-1
Stanford 200-1 50-1
Tennessee 100-1 20-1
Texas A&M 12-1 11-5
Virginia 75-1 18-1
Xavier 100-1 40-1

Field                                              100-1

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