A's aim to extend home win streak over Mariners
Baseball Betting Lines
09/07/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Oakland has played well at home this season and nobody knows that better than the Mariners. The two AL West rivals will go at it again tonight in the second test of a three-game series from the Coliseum.
Oakland recorded its sixth straight win as the host in this series with Monday's 6-2 triumph over the Mariners. Coco Crisp and Matt Carson each hit a solo homer and Daric Barton contributed two hits and two runs scored for the Athletics, who have won three of four games on this nine-game residency.
A's starter Brett Anderson was solid through 7 2/3 innings, as he allowed only one run on four hits with four strikeouts. Craig Breslow and Andrew Bailey went the rest of the way to preserve the win and pull the Athletics seven games behind Texas for the AL West lead.
"It's good," Anderson said of ending his 0-4 slide in five starts. "I've pitched pretty good here lately and really haven't had much to show for it. It feels good to start off this series with a victory."
The Athletics will also host Boston for three games and are slated to send Dallas Braden to the hill this evening. Braden has gone the distance on five separate occasions this season and three times in his previous seven starts. He did not, however, make it past the fifth inning in last Thursday's 5-0 loss at Yankee Stadium.
Braden held New York to a run and two hits in five innings to suffer the loss, falling to 9-10 in 24 outings with a 3.23 ERA. The left-hander, who had won five of seven decisions before losing in the Bronx, defeated Seattle less than a month ago on August 11 at Safeco Field. Braden posted a complete game and yielded just a run and four hits in a 5-1 victory. He is 2-1 in six career meetings (five starts) with the Mariners.
Seattle has lost four of six games and opened its road trip on a bad note.
Jason Vargas lasted just 4 1/3 innings on the hill and was touched for five runs on seven hits and two walks in 4 1/3 innings to suffer the loss. Franklin Gutierrez homered and Jose Lopez knocked in a run for the Mariners.
"Probably in my last seven or eight starts, guys have been a lot more patient and I've been throwing a lot more fastballs to counter that," Vargas said. "I wish I would have thrown more pitches down today."
The Mariners will also visit the LA Angels of Anaheim for three games.
Scheduled to take the hill Tuesday for the cellar dwellers in the AL West is Doug Fister, who has lost three straight starts and is 1-10 with a 4.92 ERA in his last 16 starts. Seattle is 4-12 over that span and got a rough outing from Fister last Thursday in a 6-3 loss versus Cleveland. He gave up four runs and seven hits though 5 1/3 innings to fall to 4-11 in 23 starts this season.
Fister, a right-hander, defeated Oakland on August 9 this season with six innings of one-run ball in a 3-1 victory. He is 3-1 with a superb 1.50 earned run average in five career starts in this series.
Oakland has won six of seven meetings with the Mariners held at the Coliseum this year, as well as eight of 13 overall matchups between the teams in 2010.
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MySportsbook.com Posts Heisman Trophy Odds
With 3,919 passing yards, 32 touchdowns and a mere seven interceptions last season, combined with a powerful South Bend Heisman legacy, odds makers at MySportsbook.com have given Notre Dame senior quarterback Brady Quinn the best Heisman Trophy odds at 5-2.
Quinn isn’t the only big man on campus this season. Oklahoma junior running back and 2004 Heisman runner-up Adrian Peterson, listed at 7-2, rushed for a combined 3,033 yards in his first two years as a college player and will give Quinn a run for his money.
This online sportsbook has also listed Troy Smith, Ohio State senior quarterback, as another strong favorite to win the 72nd Heisman Trophy. A 7-1 bet, Smith threw for 2,282 yards last season and also led the Buckeyes to a convincing 34-20 victory over Quinn and the Fighting Irish in last season’s Fiesta Bowl.
Current betting odds Heisman trophy are:
| Brady Quinn (QB, Notre Dame) Adrian Peterson (RB, Oklahoma) Troy Smith (QB, Ohio State) Michael Bush (RB, Louisville) Steve Slaton (RB, West Virginia) Brian Brohm (QB, Louisville) Chris Leak (QB, Florida) Mike Hart (RB, Michigan) Ted Ginn (WR, Ohio State) Darius Walker (RB, Notre Dame) Drew Tate (QB, Iowa) Marshawn Lynch (RB, Cal) Kenny Irons (RB, Auburn) Chad Henne (QB, Michigan) Kyle Wright (QB, Miami) Drew Stanton (QB, Michigan State) Kenneth Darby (RB, Alabama) JaMarcus Russell (QB, LSU) Drew Weatherford (QB, Florida State) Blake Mitchell (QB, South Carolina) Reggie Ball (QB, Georgia Tech) |
5-2 7-2 7-1 10-1 10-1 12-1 12-1 18-1 18-1 20-1 30-1 35-1 35-1 40-1 50-1 50-1 60-1 60-1 60-1 60-1 60-1 |
For complete NCAA Football odds visit MySportsbook.com.
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NCAA Football Betting : USC's reward: Top spot in Top 25NEW YORK (AP) -By staying away from the cupcakes, Southern California earned itself a slim new ranking.
No. 1 always seems to fit USC.
Southern California jumped two spots to No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 on Tuesday, rewarded by voters for opening the season with a dominant performance on the road against a BCS conference opponent.
Georgia and Ohio State, the preseason Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, started their seasons with glorified scrimmages at home against FCS (formerly I-AA) teams. USC, however, traveled across country to face Virginia and could not have been more impressive in a 52-7 victory.
Georgia fell to No. 2 and Ohio State to No 3.
"We realize that rankings so early in a season are certainly fluid. But rankings do help establish a pecking order for things later in the season," USC coach Pete Carroll said in a statement. "As for moving into the No. 1 spot, it's nice to know that people think highly of our team."
Since reaching No. 1 on Dec. 7, 2003, the final-regular season AP poll of that season, USC has been No. 1 in 39 polls, by far the most of any team during that time.
"Some have said the voters are taking our schedule into consideration," Carroll said. "Our philosophy has always been to schedule outstanding opponents. We need to play challenging games like we just did, traveling across the country to open the season at Virginia. Games like that bring out our best and make us stronger as a team."
The latest voting was close. USC received 21 first-place votes and 1,539 points from the 65-member media panel. Georgia had 20 first-place votes and 1,506 points. Ohio State got 15 first-place votes and 1,497 points.
"I'd say we've evolved as pollsters," said Stewart Mandel of SI.com, who moved USC up to No. 1. "In the past, voters just kind of automatically moved teams up and kept teams where they were if they won."
Georgia beat Georgia Southern 45-21 on Saturday and Ohio State opened with a 43-0 win over Youngstown State.
"There's a bit of a growing backlash for the amount of teams that open with I-AA cupcakes," said Mandel, whose book "Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls" chronicles college football's controversies. "To see a team [USC] go on the road and play a New Year's Day bowl team from last season, and not only play them but destroy them, how could you not reward that team?"
USC also jumped past Georgia to No. 1 in the USA Today coaches' poll, which has the same top five as the AP poll.
"It's definitely a privilege to be No. 1. But it's not heartbreaking to me if we drop," Georgia offensive lineman Josh Davis said. "It doesn't matter right now what we're ranked. What matters is our next game and right now, that's Central Michigan. The only time the polls matter is in December. That's when the polls matter."
While the Bulldogs opened easy, their schedule ultimately should be as difficult as any team's. Georgia's big nonconference test is at No. 15 Arizona State on Sept. 20. The Bulldogs also face six Southeastern Conference rivals that've been ranked in the first two polls.
As for Ohio State, the Buckeyes play at USC on Sept. 13 before getting into the Big Ten schedule.
But of the teams in this week's top 10, USC and Texas are the only ones that don't play an FCS opponent, and the Trojans are the only team that doesn't play a team from a non-BCS conference.
Get the latest 2009 BCS Championship odds at MySportsbook.com.
The last team to drop from No. 1 after a victory was USC last season. LSU jumped from No. 2 to No. 1 when it beat Tulane 34-9, the same week the Trojans edged Washington 27-24 on the road.
The last preseason No. 1 team to lose the top spot after winning its opening game was Florida in 2001. The Gators beat Marshall 49-14, but preseason No. 2 Miami opened with a 33-7 victory over Penn State and the Hurricanes jumped to No. 1 with Florida slipping to second.
The next four teams in the new Top 25 stayed the same: No. 4 Oklahoma (two first-place votes), No. 5 Florida (five first-place votes), No. 6 Missouri (one first-place vote), No. 7 LSU (one first-place vote) and No. 8 West Virginia.
No. 9 Auburn and No. 10 Texas each moved up a spot, taking advantage of Clemson's big drop. Clemson, ninth in the preseason, fell out after losing 34-10 to Alabama on Saturday.
Also falling out after losses were Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and Tennessee.
Moving into the rankings were No. 21 Fresno State, No. 22 Utah, No. 23 UCLA and No. 24 South Carolina.
Alabama moved up 11 spots after its big victory over Clemson.
The second 10 started with No. 11 Wisconsin, followed by Texas Tech, Alabama and Kansas. BYU and Arizona State were tied for 15th. Rivals BYU and Utah are both ranked for the first time since 1996.
South Florida was No. 17, ahead of Oregon, Penn State and Wake Forest at No. 20.
The final five were all the teams to move into the ranking, except for Illinois, which dropped four spots and tied South Carolina for No. 24.
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