Rays ride hot streak into Arlington
Baseball Betting Lines
07/03/2009 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Tampa Bay Rays take their hot streak into the Lone Star State, where the defending American League champions will start up an intriguing three-game series with the Texas Rangers this evening.
With wins in 15 of their last 20 games, the Rays have climbed right back into contention in the AL East and league Wild Card races. Tampa Bay enters tonight's play trailing first-place Boston by five games in the division standings, while sitting two back of the New York Yankees for the Wild Card.
The Rays had ripped off a season-high seven straight wins before being shut down by Toronto's Ricky Romero on Wednesday, with the Blue Jays' rookie yielding just four hits over eight shutout innings to lead his team to a 5-0 victory.
Romero got more than enough support in the form of solo homers from Scott Rolen, Rod Barajas and Adam Lind, with each of the blasts coming off Rays starter James Shields (6-6). The right-hander lasted 7 1/3 innings and was reached for five runs (4 earned) on seven hits while striking out eight batters.
"I feel terrible when [Shields is] out there just battling his butt off and we can't give him enough runs to win," said second baseman Ben Zobrist, who collected two of the Rays' four hits. "We know it's going to come around."
The Rangers are embroiled in a tight race of their own at the moment, with the club currently one game behind the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for first place in the AL West. Texas closed the gap on its rival by winning the final two tests of a recent three-game series at Rangers Ballpark, including a wild 9-7 triumph in Wednesday's finale.
After squandering a three-run lead in the top of the ninth, the Rangers prevailed when Hank Blalock socked a game-winning two-run homer with two outs in their half of the frame.
Blalock also had a solo homer in the fourth inning and finished 3-for-5 on the night. Michael Young also collected three hits for Texas, while Chris Davis drove in a pair of runs in the win.
The walkoff blast made a winner out of Frank Francisco (2-1), despite the closer surrendering a game-tying three-run homer to Juan Rivera in the top of the ninth. Rangers starter Kevin Millwood worked the first 6 1/3 innings and allowed four runs on eight hits.
"When a guy doesn't have his stuff that night, it's up to the offense to pick him up," Blalock said. "Michael (Young) got on base for us and I was fortunate enough to drive him in."
Texas has scored nine runs or more in each of its last four wins and will take its swings tonight against the recently-activated Scott Kazmir. The Tampa hurler returned from a five-week stint on the disabled list due to a strained right quadriceps and pitched well despite not receiving a decision.
Kazmir held Florida to two runs on four hits over five innings and exhibited good control, throwing 61 of his 92 pitches for strikes.
The hard-throwing lefty had struggled badly with command prior to being put on the DL. Kazmir walked 29 batters in 45 2/3 innings over his first nine starts of the year and brought an unwanted 7.69 earned run average into Friday's appearance.
The native Texan has had little trouble when facing the Rangers in the past, however. In seven career starts against tonight's opponent, Kazmir is 4-0 with a 2.09 ERA and has amassed 56 strikeouts in a combined 43 innings.
The Rangers counter with Tommy Hunter, who goes in search of his first big- league victory as he makes his sixth start in the majors.
Hunter has pitched twice for Texas this season, with the most recent coming in Sunday's 2-0 home loss to San Diego. The young right-hander had a solid performance in a losing cause, giving up just a pair of runs on seven hits and walking none in 6 1/3 innings.
The University of Alabama product, who will be celebrating his 23rd birthday today, also made an emergency start in a May 29 doubleheader against Oakland and allowed three runs in a 5 1/3-inning no-decision.
Hunter is taking the place of Matt Harrison, sent to the disabled list last week with biceps inflammation, in the Texas rotation.
Tonight's clash is the first meeting of the season between these teams. The Rays won six of nine matchups with Texas a year ago, including four of six tilts held in Arlington.
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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.