Myers opposes red-hot Hudson in the desert

Baseball Betting Lines

09/03/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Trade deadline pick-up Daniel Hudson can continue a sterling National League debut tonight when the Arizona Diamondbacks host the Houston Astros in the opener of a three-game series at Chase Field.

A 23-year-old from Lynchburg, Va., Hudson was acquired in a late July deal that sent veteran pitcher Edwin Jackson to the Chicago White Sox. He's since made six starts for Arizona, winning four times and allowing three runs or less in each outing.

Hudson was on the mound for seven innings in his last outing on Aug. 28, when he allowed four hits and two runs in the Diamondbacks' 11-3 win at San Francisco. The Old Dominion University product has pitched at least seven in each NL outing.

Overall with Arizona, Hudson has allowed just 30 hits and nine runs in 43 2/3 innings with 42 strikeouts. In three starts with Chicago before the trade, he'd given up 17 hits and 11 runs in just 15 2/3 innings.

Hudson has never faced Houston.

For the Astros, super-consistent righty Brett Myers aims for a 28th straight start in which he's pitched at least six innings. In his first year with Houston, Myers has been a symbol of durability while notching 145 strikeouts and allowing just 174 hits in 185 innings.

He's on pace to surpass 200 innings for the second time in his career and first since 2005, when he logged 215 1/3 innings while going 13-8 with the Philadelphia Phillies.

The former first-round draft pick (12th overall, 1999) won double-digit games five times with the Phillies and reached that mark for Houston in his last start when he allowed six hits in seven scoreless innings of a 4-1 win over the New York Mets.

Myers, who is 4-7 on the road this year, got a no-decision against the Diamondbacks in Houston on May 5, when he was touched for six hits and two runs in seven innings of the Astros' 4-2 victory.

Lifetime against Arizona, he is 2-2 with a save in seven games with a 3.92 earned run average.

On Wednesday in Houston, Hunter Pence hit a three-run homer as part of a four- run fifth inning, as the Astros completed a three-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals with a 5-2 win at Minute Maid Park.

Michael Bourn added a single, RBI and run scored for Houston, which has won nine of its last 11. Carlos Lee chipped in with a sacrifice fly.

Nelson Figueroa (4-2) took the win after throwing five innings. The veteran yielded two runs on six hits, walked three and struck out one. Brandon Lyon worked a perfect ninth inning to record his 11th save of the season.

In Arizona, Brandon Allen belted his first career grand slam in the bottom of the seventh inning, and the Diamondbacks beat San Diego, 5-2, to complete a three-game sweep.

It was quite a 2010 debut for Allen, who was promoted from Triple-A Reno earlier Wednesday, the first day major league rosters could be expanded.

Barry Enright (6-2) gave up two runs and nine hits over seven innings for Arizona, which has won six of its last seven games. The rookie right-hander has yet to allow more than three runs in any of his 12 starts.

Arizona is 3-1 against the Astros this season.

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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.