Burnett ready to go to work as Blue Jays battle Tigers
Baseball Betting Lines
04/04/2007 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - A.J. Burnett hopes to put an injury-plagued 2006 behind him this afternoon when the Toronto Blue Jays play the middle contest of their season-opening three-game set against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park.
After signing a five-year, $55 million deal last offseason, Burnett was limited to just 21 starts a year ago due to an elbow injury that cost him two months on the disabled list. Burnett still managed to go 10-8 with a 3.98 ERA. This year he is apparently healthy and the Blue Jays hope he can be that solid second starter behind ace Roy Halladay.
Burnett won his only other start against the Tigers, despite giving up five runs and five hits in 6 1/3 frames.
Detroit will counter with left-hander Nate Robertson, who was moved up a couple of days in the wake of the Kenny Rogers injury. Robertson was a workhorse for the Tigers last season, as he posted a 13-13 mark to go along with a 3.84 ERA in 32 starts and over 208 innings.
Robertson, who held hitters to a .199 average with runners in scoring position a year ago, has faced the Blue Jays five times (four starts) in his career and is 2-1 against them with a save and a 5.26 ERA.
Toronto started the season on a winning note on Monday when it scored two runs in the 10th inning to post a 5-3 victory. Lyle Overbay's RBI double put the Blue Jays ahead for good in the 10th, while Alex Rios knocked in a pair of runs in the victory.
B.J. Ryan recorded the save for Jason Frasor (1-0), who was credited with the win after retiring two batters in the bottom of the ninth.
Fernando Rodney (0-1) was saddled with the loss.
Placido Polanco notched three hits and Curtis Granderson went 2-for-5 and scored a run in the loss for the Tigers, who have not started a season 0-2 since losing nine straight to open the 2003 campaign.
Detroit, which will receive its AL Championship rings before the game, split its six meetings with the Blue Jays last season and is 11-9 in the overall series since the start of the 2004 season. Toronto did take two of three games from the Tigers in their only trip to Comerica in 2006.
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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK
NFL Football Trash TalkTrash 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.