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06/11/2007 - Atlanta, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ted Lilly was tossed in the first inning for plunking Edgar Renteria and, though the Chicago bullpen pitched well for the first seven innings, everything fell apart for Ryan Dempster in the eighth, as the Atlanta Braves came back to top the Cubs, 5-4, and earn a split in their four-game set.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia went 3-for-4 with a double and a run, and Kelly Johnson homered for the Braves, who have won two in a row, but have lost six of their last nine games. Chad Paronto (3-1) tossed 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief, and Bob Wickman picked up his 11th save.
Atlanta starter Buddy Carlyle gave up seven hits and four runs in 6 1/3 innings, fanning four for the Braves.
Michael Barrett and Mike Fontenot homered for the Cubs, who have dropped two straight after winning five of six. Dempster (1-3) gave up three hits, three runs, and walked three in an inning, and also had a wild pitch.
Dempster was brought on in the eighth, up 4-2, for a two-inning save, but couldn't even get out of the first inning with the lead. Saltalamacchia doubled off the wall in right, and scored on Scott Thorman's double. Pinch- hitter Willie Harris singled and stole second, and Johnson was intentionally walked, loading the bases. Yunel Escobar grounded into a double play, but the tying run came across, and Dempster's wild pitch allowed Harris to come home with the go-ahead run.
Tempers flared on both sides in the first inning, but only Lilly was sent packing. After striking out the first two batters of the inning, Lilly threw two balls to Renteria before firing the third pitch high and tight, hitting Renteria's left hand. Homeplate umpire Jim Wolf issued warnings to Lilly and both teams as Renteria started towards the mound, and the benches and bullpens cleared. No punches were thrown on either side, but Wolf apparently changed his mind about merely warning Lilly, and ejected the lefty, much to the surprise of both Lilly and manager Lou Piniella.
The seeds for the incident were planted on Saturday, when Atlanta pitcher Tim Hudson plunked Chicago outfielder Alfonso Soriano in the first inning, an obvious message after Soriano blasted three homers in Friday's game. Hudson, however, was not ejected for his actions.
Renteria appeared to exact his own revenge for the plunking later in the inning, as he followed through on his slide into second on a steal attempt and, though he was tagged out by Fontenot, Renteria clocked the Cubs second baseman with his left arm.
Johnson got the Braves on the board with his eighth longball of the season, a one-out solo blast in the third. Later in the inning, with two outs and runners at first and second, Jeff Francoeur poked a clutch single to left, plating another run.
Fontenot's RBI triple in the fifth got the Cubs one run, and Soriano tied things at 2-2 with a sacrifice fly later in the inning.
Barrett gave the Cubs the lead with his ninth homer of the season, a one-out solo shot in the sixth. Fontenot led off the seventh with a long fly ball to left that fell just over the fence and out of the reach of Matt Diaz, for the rookie's first career homer, handing Chicago a two-run lead.
Game Notes
This was Piniella's 3,000th career game as a manager. He is one of 17 major league managers to reach 3,000, and one of four active managers, including Atlanta's Bobby Cox (3,923)...Renteria remained in the game after being hit, but left in the fourth. X-Rays on Renteria's left hand were negative...Atlanta won the season series, 5-4.
<< Big Unit outpitches Dice-K
Phoenix, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Eric Byrnes went 3-for-5 with a double as
Arizona avoided a three-game sweep with a 5-1 victory over Boston at Chase
Field.
Veteran left-hander Randy Johnson started on the mound for Arizona and gave
<< Fouch wins again on Duramed Futures Tour
Hammond, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Allison Fouch fired a six-under 66 Sunday to
win the United States Steel Golf Classic, her second victory on the Duramed
Futures Tour this season.
Fouch finished three rounds at Lost Marsh Golf Course at
<< Glaus leads Blue Jays over Dodgers
Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Troy Glaus had three hits, including a pair
of solo homers, and scored three runs as the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the
Los Angeles Dodgers, 11-5.
John McDonald went 3-for-4 with two RBI and scored a pai
<< Gordon reigns supreme at Pocono
Long Pond, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Steve Letarte made the right calls and got
Jeff Gordon out front when the rains came to capture Sunday's rain-delayed
Pocono 500 at the Pocono Raceway. The No.24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
crossed
San Lorenzo bags Clausura title >>
Buenos Aires, Argentina (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - San Lorenzo captured its first
league title since 2001 with a 4-2 win against Arsenal at Pedro Bidegain on
Sunday.
Second-placed Boca Juniors earned a 1-0 victory over Belgrano earlier in
Phillies welcome White Sox in Thome's return to Philly >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jim Thome makes his return to Philadelphia this evening and
will lead the Chicago White Sox in the first of three interleague games
against the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.
Thome signed a big free agent contract with th
Run-deprived Giants host Jays by the Bay >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The San Francisco Giants hope to put a run on the board for
the first time in three games this evening when they open a three-game
interleague set with the Toronto Blue Jays at AT&T Park.
The Giants enter this s
Mariners try to clip Byrd at the Jake >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Cleveland Indians and Seattle Mariners will play the
second of four makeup games this evening from a series that was postponed
entirely by severe weather conditions back in early April.
Cleveland already defeat
“You play to win the game!”
Those are the words of notoriously intense head coach Herman Edwards. Unfortunately, from a bettors’ perspective, most coaches don’t feel that way about the NFL preseason. August is a time to evaluate young players, finalize the depth chart and pray your star players stay healthy.
The trick to making money during the exhibition schedule is identifying coaches – like Edwards – who can’t stand losing even when there's nothing on the line.
The New York Jets betting won 15 of 21 preseason games and went 14-7 against the spread (ATS) during Edwards’s five-year tenure with the club. In his first season as the Kansas City Chiefs field boss, the team improved from 0-4 to 2-2.
Identifying win-a-holics like Edwards is a good start if you plan betting the preseason – even though most say you shouldn’t ... but what the hell do they know anyway?
Here’s a brief rundown of two teams that have a habit of winning during the second-stringers’ season, and another club that has a good chance of exceeding this year.
Playing in the media hub of North America can be stressful but the press can’t write anything negative about the way Tom Coughlin’s boys play in the preseason. The Giants won and covered all four games last summer, improving their record to 7-1 both straight up (SU) and against the spread over the last two years.
Coughlin has shown he’s not afraid to give his starters more time in the second preseason game than most of his colleagues, no doubt one of the reasons his team has been so dominant.
Bettors can count on America’s team early on. The Cowboys are 14-6 both SU and ATS since 2002 in warm-up contests. Former coach Bill Parcells, the coach of the team the last four years, has an intimidating, in-your-face presence – surely a reason Dallas has had so much early success.
The Big Tuna won’t be strolling the sidelines with looks of disgust, but new coach Wade Phillips will be anxious to make a good first impression for owner Jerry Jones.
Dallas plays the Indianapolis Colts and the Denver Broncos before things get serious. They then face the Houston Texans in their third contest (the game starters see most game time) and finish off with the Minnesota Vikings.
Expect a Dallas team able to walk away with another 3-1 preseason record.
This team scored a league-worst 12 offensive touchdowns last season, so the rookies and veterans each have something to prove. There’s a bounty of first-unit jobs up for grabs and plenty of bodies competing for those slots.
First-time head coach Lane Kiffin will be eager to impress an owner who employs the philosophy, “Just win, baby!”
The 32-year-old Kiffin has to command respect from a locker room full of players older than him. All of these factors should lead to purpose in preseason.
Don’t forget: before playing like a team that belonged in NFL Europe, Oakland went 4-1 (both SU and ATS) in exhibition games.
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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.
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