Cabrera takes hill for O's at Minnesota
Baseball Betting Lines
06/04/2008 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Daniel Cabrera probably didn't enjoy leading the league in losses last season. The right-hander is making sure it doesn't happen again and will go for his fourth straight winning decision tonight in the Baltimore Orioles' second test of a three-game series with the Minnesota Twins at the Metrodome.
Cabrera led the majors with 17 setbacks last year and also issued a major- league high 108 walks in 2007. However, he issued just one free pass during his current three-decision win streak from May 8-20 and is 5-1 with a 3.60 earned run average on the season.
The 27-year-old got a little wild in a no-decision versus Tampa Bay on May 25, walking six batters over 5 2/3 innings. He than walked just two while allowing two runs in seven frames in last Friday's start against Boston while also not factoring in that decision.
Cabrera is 5-2 with a 3.33 ERA in eight career starts versus Minnesota, including a 2-1 mark in four starts at the Metrodome with a 2.59 ERA.
The righty will be trying to pitch the O's to a second straight win on the road. Baltimore had lost five in a row as the visitor before kicking off a nine-game swing with Tuesday's 5-3 victory over the Twins.
Kevin Millar and Melvin Mora each hit solo homers in the victory, while Adam Jones added two hits and a pair of runs driven in. Jones has a hit in eight of his last nine games and has posted an RBI in four straight games, driving home seven in that span.
Radhames Liz (1-0) got the win as he gave up two runs on four hits in 5 1/3 innings of work in his season debut. George Sherrill earned his 19th save of the season with a scoreless ninth.
The victory for Baltimore snapped a nine-game losing streak to Minnesota and was its first over the club since September 22, 2006.
Joe Mauer had a double and an RBI for the Twins, who saw their two-game win streak halted while falling 1 1/2 games back of Chicago for first place in the American League Central. Alexi Casilla had an RBI double and Brendan Harris added an RBI single in defeat.
Kevin Slowey (2-5) absorbed the loss as he was touched for four runs on seven hits in six innings.
Glen Perkins struggled in his last outing and will try to rebound tonight for the Twins. Making just his fifth career start, Perkins was shelled for five runs on a career-high 10 hits in four innings of work against the Yankees on Friday.
It marked his shortest start of the year and dropped the left-hander to 2-2 with a 3.90 ERA this season.
Perkins made 23 relief outings over the previous two seasons before joining the rotation and has faced Baltimore twice out of the bullpen.
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McAfee
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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.