Angels complete sweep of Mariners

Baseball Betting Lines

04/23/2007 - Anaheim, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ervin Santana scattered six hits and allowed one run over seven innings, as the Angels trounced Seattle, 6-1, completing a three-game sweep.

"I was able to get ahead of the hitters," Santana said. "Everything was good. I located my fastball in, and my changeup was where I wanted it to be."

Santana (2-2) struck out five and walked only one to even his career record to 2-2 against Seattle.

"He got simple with his stuff," said Angels manager Mike Scioscia. "He got back to basics, and that's encouraging. The sign of a good pitcher is when you get into trouble, you turn it up a notch, and he did that today."

Justin Speier and Dustin Moseley hurled one scoreless inning each in relief.

Gary Matthews Jr., Vladimir Guerrero and Casey Kotchman collected two hits each and an RBI for the Angels, who swept the set following a six-game skid. Orlando Cabrera scored a pair of runs and Garret Anderson was 1-for-3 with two RBI.

Jeff Weaver (0-3) exited after three full innings, giving up seven hits and three runs, striking out three and not walking a batter. He fell to 5-6 lifetime against the Angels in his first start against his former team.

Sean White gave up three hits and three runs -- one earned -- during his three frames in relief.

Raul Ibanez was 1-for-2 with two walks for the Mariners, who have lost six in a row. Adrian Beltre's homer, his third of the season, accounted for Seattle's only run.

Los Angeles grabbed a 1-0 lead in the second as Maicer Izturis crossed the plate on a dribbler up the line at third by Erick Aybar. Matthews upped the lead to 2-0 when his slicing double to left brought Shea Hillenbrand home.

It was 3-0 in the third when Kotchman's slicing triple to left-center ticked off the glove of Ibanez and went to the wall, allowing Anderson to score.

Beltre made it 3-1 on a lead-off homer to deep center in the fifth, but the Angels picked up two more in their half of the inning off White.

Cabrera led off by going to second on Yuniesky Betancourt's throwing error on his grounder to short, and moved to third on a wild pitch. Betancourt's second error of the inning allowed Guerrero to reach base and Cabrera to cross the plate. Anderson stepped up and ripped a double to the gap in left-center for a 5-1 score.

Anderson's sacrifice fly in the seventh plated Guerrero for the Angels' sixth run.

Game Notes

Santana is 21-5 all-time at Angel Stadium...The Angels have swept three of the last four series over the Mariners, and have taken seven straight at home over their division rivals...Kotchman's triple was the first of his career...Despite the loss, Weaver's ERA was lowered to 13.91...Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki had his seven-game hit streak snapped with an 0-for-4 performance...The Mariners head to Texas for a pair beginning Monday, and the Angels continue their seven-game homestand by welcoming Detroit also on Monday...Attendance was 43,628.

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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.