Reds aim to rebound against Marlins

Baseball Betting Lines

07/21/2007 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Young left-hander Bobby Livingston goes for his third win of the season, and of his brief big-league career, tonight when the Cincinnati Reds visit Dolphin Stadium for game three of a four-game series with the host Florida Marlins.

Livingston, a 24-year-old who was drafted by Seattle in the fourth round in 2001, has strung together victories in each of his last two spot starts with the injury-plagued Reds.

He defeated Colorado, 4-2, with 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball on June 1, then returned on July 16 and defeated the Atlanta Braves, 10-3, after allowing eight hits and two runs in five innings.

Livingston reached the majors with Seattle in 2006, making three relief appearances and posting an 18.00 earned run average. His first start for the Reds this season came in a 10-5 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 13, during which he allowed 10 hits and four runs in 5 1/3 innings and got a no- decision.

Korean veteran Byung-Hyun Kim goes for the Marlins in his first career start against the Reds.

Kim, who's made all but one of his 11 appearances this season as a starter, dropped a 5-3 decision to St. Louis on July 16 after allowing eight hits and five runs in six innings. He'd beaten San Diego one start prior, allowing three hits and two runs in 6 1/3 innings on July 5.

The 28-year-old has pitched in relief against Cincinnati 12 times, recording five saves and a 1.46 ERA in 12 1/3 innings.

On Friday, Dan Uggla went 3-for-5 with a home run and three RBI as the Marlins pounded the Reds, 10-2.

Scott Olsen (8-7), who had served a two-game suspension laid down by Marlins general manager Fredi Gonzalez for insubordination and conduct detrimental to the team, got the win as he gave up just two runs on four hits in seven innings.

The penalty stemmed from an incident occurring after Olsen argued with the manager when he was lifted from his last start, a 5-3 defeat of Washington on July 15.

Miguel Cabrera hit a two-run home run and drove in three runs, Miguel Olivo added a two-run homer and Hanley Ramirez had three hits and drove in a pair for the Marlins, who had lost three of four.

Jeff Conine and Brandon Phillips each hit homers while Kyle Lohse (5-12) got pounded for seven runs -- four earned -- on eight hits in 6 2/3 innings for the Reds, who had a season-high four-game winning streak stopped.

Cincinnati won four of six from the Marlins last season and is 11-9 against them since the start of the 2004 campaign. The Reds have also won seven of their last 11 in South Beach.

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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.