NL West-leading D'backs host upstart Cardinals

Baseball Betting Lines

09/07/2007 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Arizona Diamondbacks have reclaimed the top spot in the National League West. Now they will try to stay there, as the club begins a three-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals tonight at Chase Field.

The Diamondbacks took two of three over the Padres to move a game in front of San Diego in the NL West standings. They won the finale of the set, 9-6, on Wednesday.

Miguel Montero hit a pair of home runs and Conor Jackson added a two-run blast in the victory, which was helped along by Chris Young's three-run double in the fifth inning.

Livan Hernandez (10-9) yielded five runs over five frames, but the bullpen came to his rescue, allowing just one run over the remaining four innings.

Brandon Webb will try to halt a personal two-start losing streak tonight for Arizona that has seen him allow 10 runs over 12 1/3 innings. He lost to the Padres on August 28 and then yielded four runs over seven innings on Sunday against the Rockies.

Webb is now 14-10 on the year with a 2.91 earned run average. He had won six straight outings before his recent skid. The right-hander is 1-4 with a 4.67 ERA in six career starts against St. Louis.

Second baseman Orlando Hudson is questionable for tonight's game against St. Louis because of a sprained left thumb.

The Cardinals come into this series on a winning note after pounding the Pirates, 16-4, on Thursday in a rain-interrupted finale of a four-game series at Busch Stadium.

Rick Ankiel led the charge with two homers and a career-high seven runs batted in, as the Cardinals crawled to within a game of both Milwaukee and Chicago for the top spot in the NL Central.

However, Ankiel stayed in the headlines for the wrong reasons, as he reportedly received shipments of human growth hormone from a Florida pharmacy in 2004.

According to the New York Daily News, Ankiel received eight shipments of HGH from Signature Pharmacy in Orlando from January to December 2004. The Orlando pharmacy is the center of the investigation of illegal internet prescription drug sales by the Albany, New York district attorney's office.

Adam Wainwright will try to win his fourth straight decision when he takes the hill for the Cardinals tonight. Wainwright, who is 6-2 with a 2.43 ERA in his last 10 starts, has won two straight outings, including Saturday against the Reds when he allowed just two runs (one earned) and six hits over 5 2/3 innings.

The victory lifted the right-hander's record to 13-9 this year with a 3.78 ERA. He has won his last four road decisions while pitching to a 1.59 ERA in that span.

Wainwright recorded a win over Arizona on July 5 and is 1-1 in four games (one start) in his career against them with a 3.86 ERA.

The Cardinals won three of four against the Diamondbacks when the clubs met in St. Louis in early July. Arizona won four of seven versus the club last year.

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FOOTBALL BETTING LINES

NFL Football Sports Betting

Two playoff teams from 2007 take center stage on the NFL Network Sunday night in a Week 2 NFL betting match-up when the (0-1) New England Patriots betting head south to Florida for a contest with the (1-0) Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

New England HC Bill Belichick couldn’t care less about the way his team plays in the preseason. With a chance to tie last week’s game with the Baltimore Ravens betting, He elected to go for the two-point conversion and outright victory. The conversion failed, and the Pats ended up falling to the Ravens by a 16-15 final count.

New England rolled off twelve unanswered points to give it a chance at securing the victory, but it never threatened to cover the 3.5-point spread. NFL bettors saw this one coming, as they bet the Ravens down from +6 to +3.5 as the week progressed. QB Tom Brady didn’t take part in the Patriots first preseason clash, but could see action this weekend.

His three replacements all put up embarrassing numbers. They went a combined 17 for 33, and threw three interceptions and no touchdowns. The New England defense was encouraging, as they held the Ravens to 2/12 third down conversions and surrendered just ten first downs. That ‘D’ should be bolstered with the addition of former Bucs and Denver Broncos betting safety John Lynch, who could make his Patriots debut on Sunday against his former mates.

HC Jon Gruden had to be impressed with the way his Bucs played on both sides of the ball in their dominating 17-6 victory over the Miami Dolphins in Week 1’s NFL pre-season betting action. Bucs bettors were quite happy with the effort, as they made a mockery of the fact that they were underdogs in the game.

The logjam at the quarterback position didn’t get any easier to separate for Gruden, as all four of his QBs had positive experiences in the first exhibition of 2008. The four combined to complete 28 of their 40 passes for 204 yards and a touchdown, and that was without starting QB Jeff Garcia in the lineup.

RB Michael Bennett had 19 carries and four receptions, totaling 90 yards and a touchdown. Expect to see more of Bennett, Kenneth Darby, and Earnest Graham, as they all compete for playing time with Warrick Dunn in the backfield this season. Defensively, the Bucs recorded four sacks and held the Fins offense in check all day.

First round draft pick Aqib Talib was impressive in the secondary, recording a tackle and two pass defenses in his debut. Don’t be surprised to see Talib in the starting lineup opposite Ronde Barber for the Bucs in ’08.

The betting trends suggest that NFL bettors should be backing the Bucs in this intra-conference exhibition.

These two teams hooked up last year in Tampa Bay, with the Bucs winning that game 13-10. The Buccaneers have only lost one preseason game at home dating back to the beginning of the ’05 preseason. The Patriots have had a mixed bag of results in their recent exhibitions. They have gone 2-2 ATS and SU each of the last three years.

New England currently sits as modest 1-point favorites in this preseason showdown with the ‘total’ now sitting at 34.5.

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