A-Ram leads Cubs over D'Backs
Baseball Betting Lines
07/07/2010 - Phoenix, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Aramis Ramirez belted a pair of two-run homers, and the Chicago Cubs secured back-to-back road wins for the first time since late May with a 6-4 decision over the Arizona Diamondbacks in the middle installment of a three-game series.
Ramirez, who came into Tuesday hitting .178, went deep off starter Barry Enright in the sixth inning and Aaron Heilman in the eighth as the Cubs posted consecutive victories for the first time since June 16-17 vs. Oakland. They hadn't won two in a row on the road since May 22-23 against Texas, which was their last road series triumph.
Kosuke Fukudome hit a solo homer for the Cubs, who moved to 9-2 against National League West competition this season. Chicago is 28-45 against all other foes. Tuesday's result also gave the Cubs their first series win at Chase Field since August 22-24, 2003 when the club won two of three games.
Carlos Silva (9-2) gave up four hits and a pair of runs over six innings to snap a four-start winless skid. He's 5-0 on the road this season. Carlos Marmol pitched the final 1 2/3 innings for his 16th save.
Kelly Johnson homered for the Diamondbacks, who lost their fourth in a row. Enright (1-1) was charged with seven hits and three runs over 5 2/3 innings in his second major league appearance.
Stephen Drew's sacrifice fly gave the Diamondbacks an early lead in the second inning, but they failed to add to that despite having runners at the corners and nobody out in the fourth as Mark Reynolds struck out and Adam LaRoche grounded into a double play.
Fukudome homered to right leading off the sixth. Derrek Lee doubled later in the inning and scored on a Ramirez longball to left-center.
Johnson's homer to center in the bottom of the inning had the Diamondbacks within 3-2, but Ryan Theriot singled in Geovany Soto in the seventh. Ramirez then made it 6-2 in the eighth. Tyler Colvin walked to start the inning and Ramirez then crushed a homer to left.
Johnson and Justin Upton singled in runs in the bottom of the eighth, but with two runners on base, Miguel Montero and Reynolds both struck out to keep Chicago ahead.
LaRoche struck out to start the ninth, but made it to first on a wild pitch. Marmol retired the next three batters.
Game Notes
It was Ramirez's first multi-homer game since August 23, 2008 against Washington...The Cubs captured their first series victory since taking two of three games from Oakland June 15-17 at Wrigley Field...Ramirez has 22 multi- homer games in his career.
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Football Betting Sportsbook Accepts Credit Cards
Michael Vick is back, Brett Favre isn't and the NFC East remains the best division in the NFC, maybe in all of football.
As players start to gather for the start of another season, some things change and some stay the same in the world of the NFL.
The NFC East has been the dominant division in the National Conference for a while, despite limited playoff success, save for the New York Giants surprise Super Bowl win two seasons ago.
Hell, there's a generation of kids in Texas who have never seen the Cowboys win a playoff game (last win was in 1996).
But collectively, the Giants, Eagles, Cowboys and Redskins (well, maybe not so much the Redskins) are as good as a division gets in an NFC conference that has struggled to stay competitive with the AFC side.
Sports bettors have both acknowledged the NFC East's dominance, as one glance at the NFL future odds menu will show.
Looking over the NFL betting odds at online sports book MySportsbook.com we see the top three teams listed to win the NFC Championship are all from the NFC East:
Dallas Cowboys - 7 - 1
Philadelphia Eagles - 13 - 2
New York Giants - 9 - 2
Slotting in behind these three are two teams from the NFC North: the Minnesota Vikings (15-2) and the Chicago Bears (10-1).
Again, despite the lack of recent playoff success, the Dallas Cowboys are popular with the sports betting community, as they hold 14% of all the money wagered on who will win the NFC Championship.
So far, the New York Giants are the bettors' favorite to represent their conference in the Super Bowl, as they have 24% of the overall NFC Championship betting volume.
And what about the Philadelphia Eagles? For the most part, the Eagles had a very productive offseason, the kind that could bring them back to the top.
They had a good draft adding the likes of WR Jeremy Maclin and RB LeSean McCoy.
Unfortunately, the team received a blow when long-time defensive coordinator Jim Johnson passed away on Tuesday.
But this team will make a real run at the division title this year. Going into the regular season, Philly is listed at +240 to win the division.
Last season the Eagles were 9-6-1 SU and 10-6 ATS.
Teams from the NFC East will play teams from the AFC West in the regular season and the Eagles haven't really been a good bet in the last 20 games against the likes of San Diego, Oakland, K.C. and Denver, only going 8-12 ATS.
Two seasons removed from that Super Bowl title, the New York Giants see themselves listed as the odds-on favorite in NFC East championship futures at +162.
Plaxico Burress is gone and with him all the bad publicity surrounding the gun in the sweatpants incident, but can they replace him in the offense?
Last season the Giants were a very reliable bet going 12-4 ATS.
In the Giants' last 20 games against fellow teams from the NFC East; they are 13-7 ATS.
Dallas is listed at +240 to win the division.
Dallas went 9-7 SU and 7-9 ATS last season and with the amount of talent the Cowboys have, a similar performance won't do.
The Cowboys have been atrocious against divisional rivals, going 6-14 ATS in their last 20.
The Washington Redskins are longshots to win the division at +550.
Visit MySportsbook.com for free sportsbook odds RSS feeds go to MySportsbook.com for all your betting football needs.