Astros seeking to pin another loss on pitiful Pirates

Baseball Betting Lines

08/15/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Lefty J.A. Happ meets the Pittsburgh Pirates for the first time in a Houston uniform today, when the Astros aim for a three-game sweep against the visiting Bucs in the finale of a weekend set at Minute Maid Park.

The Astros made it two in a row over the Pirates on Saturday, when Hunter Pence went 3-for-4 with a home run, two doubles and two RBI in a 3-2 win. The victory was also Houston's eighth without a loss over the Pirates at Minute Maid Park this season.

Pence's hit in the seventh put Bud Norris (5-7) in the win column after the right-hander finished with a Minute Maid Park-record 14 strikeouts and allowed two runs on five hits in his seven-inning start.

Paul Maholm (7-11) was on the opposite end of the decision, yielding three runs on nine hits in 6 2/3 frames for Pittsburgh, which has lost six straight overall and nine in a row on the road. The Pirates are now 2-13 in their last 15 visits to Houston.

Pittsburgh's Andrew McCutchen tripled to the right-field gap leading off the game and trotted home when Garrett Jones took Norris deep over the wall in right for his 17th home run of the season. The Pirates would fail to score the rest of the way, however.

Happ, who appeared in 35 games for Philadelphia last season, began 2010 with the Phillies before heading to Texas as part of the late-July trade that sent veteran Houston ace Roy Oswalt to the Phils.

He was 1-0 with Philadelphia and has split a pair of decisions in three starts with his new team, beating Milwaukee and losing at St. Louis before getting a no-decision against Atlanta on Tuesday. In 13 1/3 innings as an Astro, Happ has been touched for 10 hits and eight runs.

Happ is 1-1 in two starts against Pittsburgh with a 2.40 earned run average in 15 innings.

For the Pirates, righty Jeff Karstens seeks his first win since June 19 and just his third of the season. The San Diego native and product of Texas Tech University was 2-2 on the year after a 6-4 win over Cleveland on June 19 in Pittsburgh.

He winless in nine subsequent starts, however, and has picked up six losses in that span, including a 4-1 setback at San Diego on Tuesday in which he gave up three hits and two runs in six strong innings.

Karstens has allowed three runs or less in six of his outings during the streak. He is 1-1 with a 5.60 ERA in four lifetime appearances against Houston.

The Astros have now taken nine of the 11 overall meetings between these NL Central foes thus far in 2010.

Sportsbook-internet-sportsbook Baseball Betting News

<< Red-hot Twins take aim at sweep of A's
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) -- Looking to put distance between themselves and the Chicago White Sox in the American League Central, the Minnesota Twins will try to continue their winning ways when they host the Oakland Athletics today in the finale of a t

<< Tigers shoot for much-needed series win in Chicago
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) -- Looking for his first win since late June, Armando Galarraga will toe the rubber this afternoon for Detroit as the Tigers battle the Chicago White Sox in the finale of a three-game set at U.S. Cellular Field. Galarraga h

<< Feyenoord falters at Excelsior
Rotterdam, Netherlands (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Guyon Fernandez scored two goals, including the game-winner in stoppage time, to propel Excelsior to a 3-2 win over Feyenoord on Sunday. Fernandez was responsible for putting his team in fro

<< Poulter withdraws from PGA Championship
Kohler, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Battling an illness, Ian Poulter withdrew from the final round of the PGA Championship on Sunday and flew home. "Flying back home to Orlando this morning, my bed is awaiting my arrival," the Englishman posted

<< Rookies to go head-to-head in Rays-Orioles finale
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) -- Jeremy Hellickson will look to remain undefeated in his young major league career when he takes the hill for the Tampa Bay Rays this afternoon in the finale of a three-game series against the Baltimore Orioles at Tropicana F

Heavy-hitting Yankees to wrap up series in Kansas City >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) -- Bryan Bullington will make his second start of the season for Kansas City when the Royals close out a four-game set against the New York Yankees this afternoon at Kauffman Stadium. Bullington has been up and down through

Cubs try to make it two in a row over rival Cards >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Chicago Cubs will be aiming to string together consecutive wins for the first time in over three weeks when the struggling club concludes a three-game series with the rival St. Louis Cardinals this afternoon at Busch Stad

Indians activate Hafner >>
Cleveland, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Cleveland Indians activated designated hitter Travis Hafner from the 15-day disabled list Sunday. Hafner was batting .267 with a .368 on-base percentage, nine home runs and 33 RBI in 82 games before l

Red Sox, Rangers to hold rubber match of exciting set >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - In what has turned out to be an exciting battle, the Texas Rangers and the Boston Red Sox will take the field this afternoon for the finale of a three-game series at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. After falling to the Rang

Rox' Jimenez standing in way of Brewers' potential series win >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Milwaukee Brewers are in position to take a series from the Colorado Rockies on the road for the first time in five years. With Ubaldo Jimenez set to take the mound for the home team in this afternoon's rubber match of th

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.