Phils welcome Cardinals to Citizens Bank Park

Baseball Betting Lines

05/03/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The St. Louis Cardinals will take a tour through Pennsylvania starting with tonight's opener of a four-game series against the two-time defending National League champion Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.

The National League Central-leading Cardinals, who have the best record in the Senior Circuit at 17-8, will also pay a visit to the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park later this week. They just took the last two meetings of a three-game set from the Cincinnati Reds and are coming off Sunday's 6-0 victory behind another solid performance from starting pitcher Chris Carpenter.

Carpenter improved to 4-0 with seven shutout innings, eight strikeouts and three walks while walking only two batters. Jason Motte and Mitchell Boggs each threw a scoreless inning of relief to preserve the shutout.

"I felt good, no question about it," Carpenter said. "It definitely felt like my fastball was better. My curveball was good. I made pitches when I had to make pitches and their guy [Harang] was pitching well."

David Freese went 3-for-4 with a home run and Albert Pujols knocked in three runs with a double during the seventh inning, as the Cardinals went 6-1 on a seven-game homestand, including a four-game sweep of Atlanta.

Jaime Garcia takes the ball for the Cards Monday night and hopes to duplicate his last start from Wednesday, when he delivered seven shutout innings in a 6-0 victory over the Braves. Garcia scattered four hits, fanned five batters and improved to 2-1 with a 1.04 ERA in four starts.

The left-hander, who has lasted at least six innings in each of his starts, will make his first career start against the Phils tonight. Garcia is 0-1 with a 4.50 ERA in two relief appearances over just two innings pitched.

Philadelphia will continue its 10-game homestand Monday and won two of three matchups with the NL East-rival New York Mets over the weekend. In Sunday night's 11-5 victory against Mets ace Johan Santana, the Phillies put up nine runs during the decisive fourth inning and sent the two-time AL Cy Young honoree to the showers with his second loss of the season.

Shane Victorino hit a grand slam and Chase Utley belted a two-run homer during the fourth inning for Philadelphia, which took back the lead in the division at a half-game ahead of the Mets. Ryan Howard had three hits, including a home run, and Placido Polanco ended 3-for-5 with a homer and two runs scored.

Jamie Moyer benefited from the huge inning to get the win and lasted six innings, allowing five runs and six hits.

"Overall, I'm okay with it," Moyer said of his performance. "The big innings are killing me for the season. It's just a matter of trying to figure out a way to stay away from that and make a pitch. I threw a lot of close pitches that did not go my way tonight, but that's baseball. I'm not going to complain about it, I'm not going to cry about it. You deal with it and just have to come back and make quality pitches."

The Phillies, who will also host the Braves for three games to close out the homestand, hope that Joe Blanton can put forth a quality outing when he makes his 2010 debut Monday. Blanton, on the disabled list since the start of the season because of a strained oblique suffered in spring training, made three minor league rehab starts and gave up five runs through 10 innings.

Blanton had never been on the DL in his six big league seasons and went 12-8 with a 4.05 earned run average in 31 starts in 2009. The recipient of a three- year contract extension worth $24 million in January, Blanton is 3-0 with a 1.71 ERA in three career starts against the Cardinals. He last faced them on July 26 in a 9-2 victory and hurled eight innings of two-run ball.

Philadelphia won four of five meetings with the Cardinals a year ago and is 6-3 over the last nine encounters at Citizens Bank Park.

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Barry Bonds is a 50-1 long shot to be this year's home run champ odds.  The favorite to be this year's home run champ is none other than Albert Pujols, however.

Now that Barry Bonds is signed and in Giants camp, it is on to his pursuit of all of sports most prestigious records: the all-time home run mark. Bonds sits just 21 homers shy of tying Hank Aaron for the career mark at 755. Word out of Giants’ camp is that Bonds is the healthiest he has been in a few years. Bonds is just two seasons removed from his injury riddled 2005 campaign where he played in only 14 games and hit only 5 home runs. He did come back last year and had a solid season hitting .270 with 26 bombs. All eyes will be on Bonds this spring and summer not only because of his home run chase but his highly publicized steroid abuse allegations. If and when Bonds breaks the record, he surely will not get the positive attention one should for breaking a record that was once thought of as “unbreakable”. Despite Bonds decent season last year, he is just 50-1 at MySportsbook.com to lead the MLB in long balls this season.

Not surprisingly, the favorites to go deep the most times this season are Albert Pujols 5-1, Ryan Howard 6-1, David Ortiz 8-1 and Alex Rodriguez 12-1. With 49 homers, Pujols finished second in the National League behind Howard (58). Pujols is considered the favorite due to the consistent power numbers that he has posted since breaking into the league in 2001. Also one must consider the fact that he played in 16 fewer games then Howard did due to an injury. Howard smashed 58 homers in his first complete season of big league play en route to the National League MVP odds award. He silenced his critics by successfully hitting left-handed pitching. Howard also displayed the ability to use his power to the opposite field. Two attributes which should keep Howard amongst the league leaders in long balls for years to come. From the American League representatives, David Ortiz leads the field. Ortiz was second in the majors last year with 54 home runs. Except for 1999 when he only played in 10 games, Ortiz has improved on his home run numbers each year he has been in the majors (1997).

Be sure to log onto online sports betting site MySportsbook.com to check out the odds for who will lead the MLB in home runs this season. Below is just a sample of the players listed. With the highest credit card rates in the industry, MySportsbook.com is the place to bet on baseball this summer.

World Series odds

Adam Dunn 15-1

Albert Pujols 5-1

Alex Rodriguez 12-1

Alfonso Soriano 15-1

Andruw Jones 25-1

Barry Bonds 50-1

Carlos Delgado 40-1

David Ortiz 8-1

Jermaine Dye 40-1

Ken Griffey Jr. 100-1

Lance Berkman 40-1

Manny Ramirez 20-1

Richie Sexson 40-1

Ryan Howard 6-1

Travis Hafner 20-1

Vladimir Guerrero 40-1

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