Giants target first place as they continue road trip in Arizona

Baseball Betting Lines

09/06/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - With first place in the National League's West Division now within their grasp, the San Francisco Giants continue a critical road trip today with the first of three straight meetings with the Arizona Diamondbacks from Chase Field.

San Francisco has taken advantage of San Diego's recent tailspin and closed within a single game of the Padres' lead atop the division with Sunday's 3-0 victory over the rival Los Angeles Dodgers. The win was the Giants' fourth in their last five contests, while the Padres have lost 10 straight games following a 4-2 setback to Colorado yesterday.

The Giants used a stellar pitching performance from Jonathan Sanchez (10-8) to top the Dodgers last night, with the left-hander yielding a mere three hits and striking out nine batters over seven shutout innings.

"I was getting ahead on every hitter," Sanchez said. "When they take the first pitch, I took advantage of it and threw strikes. I'm working on my mechanics and feel I can go deep in the game."

Juan Uribe gave Sanchez some breathing room by belting a two-run homer in the seventh inning to give the Giants a 3-0 advantage, one day after the infielder came through with a go-ahead two-run shot in the ninth that lifted San Francisco to a 5-4 triumph over the Dodgers.

The Giants will attempt to continue their winning ways when they head to Phoenix to take on the last-place Diamondbacks. San Francisco swept a four- game series from Arizona in its last visit to Chase Field and has prevailed in eight of 12 matchups between the NL West foes this season.

Madison Bumgarner helped San Francisco record that above-mentioned sweep with a solid showing against the Diamondbacks on July 24, and will be aiming to duplicate that effort when he takes the mound for today's opener. In his first career start versus Arizona, the rookie surrendered just two runs and struck out seven over seven sharp innings.

Bumgarner has struggled since then, however, having gone 1-2 with a 5.17 earned run average in six subsequent starts. The highly-regarded lefty did turn in a good game this past Tuesday, though, holding Colorado to a run on five hits through six innings in a no-decision.

The 21-year-old's best work this season has come on the road, as Bumgarner is 5-2 with a 3.76 ERA in seven assignments at visiting parks.

He'll be taking on an Arizona squad that has won seven of its last 10 games but will be trying to bounce back from back-to-back home losses to Houston over the weekend. Both of those defeats were by a single run, including Sunday's 3-2 setback in which the Diamondbacks couldn't overcome an early three-run deficit.

Hunter Pence smacked a three-run homer off Arizona starter Rodrigo Lopez in the first inning for Houston's only runs of the day. The blast came after Michael Bourn started the game with a walk and Jeff Keppinger followed with a single to put two runners aboard.

Lopez (5-13) allowed just four more hits over the remainder of his six-inning stint, but was still saddled with his sixth consecutive losing decision.

"I had a hard time adjusting from the stretch, especially with a speedy guy (Bourn) on first base," said Lopez about his rough beginning. "It caused me to throw pitches up in the zone. After that I was able to get the ball down and get my game going the way I wanted it to."

The Diamondbacks would pull within a run on solo homers by Kelly Johnson and John Hester, but went scoreless over the game's final five innings.

Arizona hopes to provide a little more support for Ian Kennedy today in the right-hander's 28th start of the season. The former New York Yankees prospect hasn't needed much help lately, though, as he's 3-0 with a 2.77 ERA over his last four outings and pitched into the seventh inning in three of those tests.

Kennedy enters today's clash off back-to-back victories over the slumping Padres, including an August 26 masterpiece in San Diego in which he permitted just one hit and fanned a career-best 12 batters in seven innings. In a rematch at Chase Field this past Tuesday, the offseason pickup was touched for three runs in seven frames to help the D-Backs to a 7-4 win.

The 25-year-old is 1-1 with a 3.05 ERA in three previous encounters with San Francisco this season, with the loss coming in a head-to-head battle with Bumgarner on July 24. The Giants scored four times off Kennedy in his 6 2/3 innings of work that night.

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Football Betting

NFL Football Betting Online

The San Francisco 49ers (5-11 SU, 5-10-1 ATS in 2007; 1-1 SU & ATS in pre-season) found some offensive life last week, and they will try to build some momentum on Thursday night as they travel to the Windy City to take on the Chicago Bears (7-9 SU & ATS in 2007; 0-2 SU, 0-1-1 ATS in pre-season) in an NFL matchup that is set to get underway at 8 PM ET at Soldier Field (natural turf) in Chicago.

Thursday, August 21

NFL betting odds: CHICAGO -3 (-120), Total 37

NOTABLE STAT: San Francisco was last in points, last in total offense in 2007
KEY NFL BETTING TREND: SF has lost its last seven SU on pre-season road

In the BetUS NFL pre-season football betting odds, the Bears are listed as a three-point favorite (laying -120), with the total posted at 37 points.

Here are some NFL football betting trends as they relate to this matchup (reflecting numbers going into the 2008 season):

* SF has lost 11 of its last 14 games SU
* SF has covered three of its last 11 games
* SF has lost six of its last seven road games SU
* SF has covered one of its last seven road games
* CHI has covered five of its last eight games
* CHI has played five of its last seven games OVER the total
* CHI has covered four of its last 13 home games
* SF has lost its last seven pre-season road games SU
* CHI has covered two of its last seven home pre-season games

Well, I guess we should congratulate the Bears on making their quarterback choice for the season's opening game, as they have designated Kyle Orton the starter against Indianapolis. The Bears obviously have lost patience with Rex Grossman, and what they do with him at this point is anybody's guess. But suffice it to say that there isn't a quarterback competition anymore, at least in training camp.

Meanwhile, the quarterback competition may also be settled in San Francisco, where the Niners bounced back from a lackluster 18-6 loss to the Raiders, in which they turned the ball over four times, to execute a 34-6 rout of the Packers last Saturday. However, coach Mike Nolan has stopped short of saying that, insisting that the job is still open. But J.T. O'Sullivan, the longshot of the trio of Niner signal-callers who opened camp, will start his third straight pre-season game here. Against Green Bay, O'Sullivan was only 8-for-17, and was intercepted, but he also threw for 9.1 yards an attempt, which included a 59-yard TD pass to Josh Morgan. The others struggled.

Some offensive cohesion is badly needed, in light of the Niners' dismal 2007 campaign, in which they were dead last in the NFL in scoring, with just 13.7 points a game. And O'Sullivan is the guy who is most familiar with offensive coordinator Mike Martz's exacting system, because he learned it last year in Detroit. O'Sullivan will go at least the entire first half and may even last longer. He'll be relieved by Alex Smith, with Shawn Hill doing the mop-up work. Three receivers who were out last week - Bryant Johnson, Ashley Lelie and Arnaz Battle - will miss this game too.

That may hurt a little here, especially since the Bears will be using a lot of their defensive starters. And it's the defense that has been keeping the Bears in games thus far. In fact, the defense and special teams were responsible for the first 19 points Chicago scored against Seattle last time out, as the offense really struggled with Grossman at the controls. But maybe the first-team offense has a chance to settle a little bit as it works more with Orton at the helm.

Certainly we have concerns about the Bears' offensive line, but we like the scenario for them here, especially if O'Sullivan doesn't make some bis plays. The Niners may have nowhere else to turn right now, and they have lost seven straight road games in the pre-season. Let's take Chicago, the three-point favorite in the NFL football betting odds.

CHICAGO -3 (-120) **
(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)

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