Santana hopes for a little run support in LA

Baseball Betting Lines

07/23/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Scoring runs is vital to winning baseball games. The New York Mets must have missed that memo.

The suddenly-dismal club will try to cross the plate a few times tonight in the second portion of a four-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Chavez Ravine. New York is 1-7 on its 11-game, three-city tour out West and has been shut out three times on the journey. In Thursday's 2-0 loss in the series opener, Hiroki Kuroda held the Mets to five hits over eight shutout innings and Hong-Chih Kuo closed the door in the ninth for his third save.

Mets starter Hisanori Takahashi pitched well, but suffered the loss after giving up both runs and three hits through seven innings. Jeff Francoeur ended with a team-high two hits for New York, which has lost 10 of 12 games overall and is 4-13 in the past 17 road games. It has been held to four runs or less in 13 straight games, going 3-10 in that span, and is 5-13 in July after going 18-8 in June.

"Offensively, we are still struggling. We just can't put things together. At some point we have to turn this thing around," said Mets manager Jerry Manuel.

Manuel might get his wish with ace Johan Santana taking the mound tonight. Santana will try to beat the Dodgers for a second time this season, as he fired six shutout innings and allowed four hits with six strikeouts in a 4-0 victory on April 27 at Citi Field. The two-time AL Cy Young Award winner improved to 3-0 with an even stellar 0.44 earned run average in three career starts against Los Angeles.

Santana is 2-0 with a 0.58 ERA in his previous four starts and did not record a decision the last time out in Sunday's 4-3, 10-inning win at San Francisco. He limited the Giants to a run despite allowing eight hits in eight innings.

The left-hander is 7-5 with a 2.87 ERA in 20 overall starts this season and will try to even his road mark Friday night. Santana is 1-2 in 10 away starts this season.

Los Angeles has won two in a row since a six-game slide and got a big night from Matt Kemp, who homered and drove in both runs to lead the way. The Dodgers are five games behind San Diego for the lead in the National League West Division and have been getting solid pitching the past few games.

"It was a great outing and we certainly needed it," Dodgers manager Joe Torre said of Kuroda's outing. "It was a carbon-copy type of game from last night. Putting wins back to back is the most important thing."

Torre will pin tonight's pitching duties on Vicente Padilla, who will try to run his unbeaten streak to five games. Padilla is 3-0 with a 0.98 earned run average in his last four starts, but did not figure into the decision of a 5-4 loss on Sunday at St. Louis.

Padilla threw six scoreless innings before the bullpen imploded and remained at 4-2 in 10 starts this season. He has enjoyed pitching at Dodger Stadium this year, going 3-1 with a 2.20 earned run average in four starts.

The right-hander from Nicaragua has also experienced success against the Mets as evidenced by his 10-3 mark in 21 career games (12 starts).

New York, which is 7 1/2 games off the pace in the NL East, swept a three-game home series from LA back in late April and has won four of the past six matchups between the teams. The Dodgers won all three meetings with the Mets held at Chavez Ravine last year.

The Mets have lost 10 of 14 games in Hollywood since the 2007 season.

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If there is any category that is not an obvious win for any one nominee in this year's Academy Awards, it would be for Best Picture.  Sure the Departed is a 5/7 favorite, but that's hardly anything when we look at Helen Mirren and her "out-of-reach" 1 to 40 odds (which means you would win a whopping $1 for every $40 bet).

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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.

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