Rookies to go head-to-head in Mets-Nationals clash

Baseball Betting Lines

09/07/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - With the Washington Nationals already looking ahead to next year -- and maybe even 2012 given Stephen Strasburg's need for Tommy John surgery -- a couple of young players are looking to show the team they can contribute.

No one has been better at that than Danny Espinosa.

The former 2008 third-round pick will aim to show his stuff again tonight, when the Nationals shoot for a season-high fourth straight win in the middle contest of a three-game set with the New York Mets at Nationals Park.

Expected to be Washington's everyday second baseman as early as next season, the 23-year-old made the start at shortstop in Monday's opener and went 4- for-5 with a pair of homers, including a sixth-inning grand slam, and six RBI in a 13-3 rout of New York.

Through five games since his September call-up, Espinosa is 9-for-16 with three homers and 10 RBI.

"These are big weeks for me," Espinosa said. "I just want to play well, play hard and I feel if I stay within myself and play my game, things will go my way."

Ivan Rodriguez added three RBI and Roger Bernadina scored three times for the Nationals, who have won a season high-tying three straight for the second time in less than two weeks.

The Nationals, though, did lose outfielder Willie Harris in the third inning after he crashed hard into the wall trying to make a catch. He came out of the game due to dizziness and is day-to-day.

Josh Thole drove in two runs for the Mets, who have lost six of eight on a 10- game road trip. Mike Pelfrey was tagged for six runs on five hits with three walks over 3 2/3 innings to take the loss.

"We had a 3-0 lead and he was kind of cruising and then kind of lost it," Mets manager Jerry Manuel said of his starter. "Mike Pelfrey is still a young pitcher. He's going to be a tremendous pitcher at some point in his career. I think he'll soon be a guy that will be counted on as someone that you know what you're going to get from him every time out."

Given that both teams are out of the playoff race, it isn't surprising that a pair of starters will be making their major league debuts in this game.

For the Mets, Dillon Gee steps in for an injured Johan Santana, who left his last start on Thursday after five innings due to a pectoral muscle strain.

"It's recommended that he skip this start," Manuel said of Santana on New York's website. "He wants to pitch, he feels like he can pitch through it, but I don't feel it's worth it to push him at this particular time. It's not in the best interest of the organization to push him at this particular point."

Gee, a 24-year-old righty, was 13-8 with a 4.96 earned run average with Triple-A Buffalo and led the International League with 165 strikeouts.

His counterpart tonight is 29-year-old Cuban Yuneski Maya, who signed a four- year deal with the Nationals on July 31 and gave up two runs -- one earned -- over 10 1/3 innings and two starts with Triple-A Syracuse.

The right-hander pitched in the World Baseball Classic in both 2006 and '09 and won Cuba's version of the Cy Young Award during his final season with Pinar Del Rio Vegueros after going 13-4 with a 2.22 ERA and seven complete games.

"I felt good in the minors," Maya told Washington's website. "My arm is at 100 percent, and I feel really good. It's a hard league in Triple-A, with a lot of veteran hitters that are pretty selective. I faced pretty tough hitters, but I felt pretty good."

The Nationals have won eight of 13 versus the Mets this year, including four of seven in Washington.

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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.

Mayweather picked to beat De La Hoya
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA -- Golden Boy Oscar De La Hoya and his rival Floyd Mayweather Jr. arrived at the MGM Grand here Wednesday amid the pomp and pandemonium befitting two of the biggest stars in the sport who are about to duke it out for the WBC super welterweight crown this Saturday (Sunday in Manila).

As of Wednesday, MySportsbook.com closed its book with Mayweather a favorite to defeat De La Hoya at -170 (a $100 bet wins $70), while De La Hoya is a +140 underdog (a $100 bet wins $140).

Mayweather arrived at about 11:30 a.m. on a big truck with his face and a big "World's Best Pound-for-Pound" sign scribbled across the vehicle. He was accompanied by his entourage made up of rappers and his training team.

A crowd of close to 3,000 eager fans packed the MGM Grand lobby, with their cameras in tow, all trying to vie for position to get a good angle at Mayweather, who is acknowledged as the world's best fighter pound-for-pound.

Eric Gomez, Golden Boy Promotions vice-president, described the fan turnout as "amazing" and swore he had never seen anything quite like this event.

"The crowd was fantastic. Everybody was just too eager to see the two fighters," said ALA manager Michael Aldeguer, who was among those who waited at the lobby together with his ward Rey "Boom Boom" Bautista and AJ Banal.

De La Hoya made his own grand entrance at the hotel lobby at around 12:30 p.m. accompanied by GBP chief executive officer Richard Schaefer and trainer Freddie Roach.

The same group of fans who trooped to see Mayweather also lingered around to get a close look at De La Hoya, who has been secretly working out at a Las Vegas gym for days after arriving from his main training camp in Puerto Rico.

The golden boy then took part in a closed-door afternoon workout with Bautista and Banal. The two, along with Aldeguer and wife Christine, as well as an HBO crew were the only ones allowed inside the gym.

De La Hoya and Mayweather take part in today's final press conference before the official weigh-in this Friday.

Ring Magazine, the acknowledged bible of boxing, reported in its June 2007 issue that 12 out of 20 boxing experts it interviewed have favored Mayweather to defeat De la Hoya, with only 8 favoring the latter.

But Filipino ring icon Manny Pacquiao said in a recent interview with The Freeman's Emmanuel Villaruel that De La Hoya will win by unanimous decision over Mayweather.

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your bet on boxing needs.