Rays continue road trip in Toronto

Baseball Betting Lines

09/10/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Although the Tampa Bay Rays still stand a good chance of reaching the postseason, they haven't played like a playoff participant over most of the team's current road trip. The American League Wild Card leaders will attempt to get back on track when they head to Toronto's Rogers Centre tonight for a battle with the fellow AL East-member Blue Jays.

After opening this nine-game trek with a victory at Baltimore on September 3, the Rays have lost four of five contests to fall 2 1/2 games behind the New York Yankees for first place in the AL East. Tampa Bay also lost a bit of ground to Boston in the Wild Card race, with the Red Sox closing to within 6 1/2 games after coming through with an 11-5 win over the Rays Wednesday at Fenway Park.

Tampa jumped out to a 4-0 lead after 1 1/2 innings, but Boston stormed back by battering starter Matt Garza and three other Rays pitchers for 17 hits, five of which were home runs.

Garza (14-8) served up four of the long balls and surrendered six runs and nine hits before being removed after only 4 1/3 innings.

"It's not a surprise," said Garza of his poor showing. "I just left some heavy heaters up, and they hit everything. There was spin on breaking balls, and they knew it was coming. I'm a fastball-type guy, and they sat on my fastball."

B.J. Upton belted a three-run homer in the second inning for Tampa, with Jason Bartlett contributing an RBI double later on in the loss.

Despite their problems on this swing, the Rays still own the best road record in the majors at 41-29. They've struggled in their visits to Toronto, however, having lost four of six games at the Rogers Centre thus far in 2010. The Blue Jays swept a three-game set with Tampa Bay north of the border from August 6-8.

Brett Cecil has given the Rays plenty of trouble this season as well. The young Toronto lefty is 3-1 with a 2.63 earned run average in four starts against Tampa in 2010, including an August 6 triumph at the Rogers Centre in which he yielded just one run on four hits and fanned nine batters over seven sharp innings.

Cecil has put together a very solid first full season in the big leagues, with the 24-year-old bringing a 12-7 record and a 3.76 ERA over 24 starts into tonight's assignment. His most recent victory came against the division- leading Yankees on Sunday, when the 2007 supplemental first round draft choice allowed three runs in 6 1/3 innings of work.

In six starts and one relief appearance lifetime against Tampa Bay, Cecil has gone 4-2 with a 3.29 ERA.

He'll be attempting to halt a two-game losing streak for the Blue Jays, with both defeats taking place at home against AL West front-runner Texas. Toronto mustered just six hits in dropping Wednesday's series finale by a 4-2 count.

Lyle Overbay and Jose Bautista both hit solo homers to account for the lone Toronto runs, with Bautista's blast extending his major league-leading total to 44 this season. The Blue Jays also top the majors as a team in that category, having belted 218 long balls on the year, and have now gone deep in 11 consecutive games.

James Shields is fully aware of the power Toronto possesses in its lineup. In his most recent encounter with the Blue Jays, the Tampa hurler permitted a career-worst six homers and eight runs total on nine hits in a forgettable four-inning stint at the Rogers Centre on August 7. The durable righty will try to bounce back from that shelling when he takes the mound for tonight's opener of this three-game set.

Shields was also hit hard in his last start, an 8-4 loss at Baltimore on Saturday in which he was tagged for six runs and eight hits in 4 1/3 innings. He had won three straight outings prior to that setback, however.

The 28-year-old is 6-5 with a 4.18 ERA over 14 career starts against Toronto, but is just 1-3 with a 5.67 ERA in five career visits to the Rogers Centre and has allowed a whopping 14 homers in 33 1/3 innings at the venue.

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MySportsbook.com favors Bears, Bengals, Chargers and Colts to remain perfect

LAS VEGAS , Sept. 28 - Two big match-ups of undefeated teams have fans salivating at the Week Four schedule in the NFL. The Chicago Bears stifling defense looks to provide a less than hospitable welcome to the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday night in a battle of two 3-0 teams in the NFC conference. In the AFC, the San Diego Chargers (2-0) head to Maryland to face the surprising Baltimore Ravens (3-0) as both try to keep pace atop the conference standings. Betting Lines makers at MySportsbook.com, online sportsbook and casino, have set the Bears as 3.5 point favorites while the Chargers are a 2.5 point bet.

Of the three remaining undefeated teams, only one, New Orleans, enters this week's game as an underdog. Despite an emotional and resounding win over Atlanta on Monday night, the Saints are a 7.5 point underdog against the struggling Carolina Panthers. Indianapolis looks to stay perfect when they face the New York Jets as a 9 point road favorite while the Cincinnati Bengals are a 6 point favorite at home to the New England Patriots.

Six teams enter the week still looking for their first win, with a seventh, Tampa Bay, on a bye week. The prospect of dropping another game would not bode well for a potential playoff run. Since 1990, just three teams -- the 1992 Chargers, 1995 Detroit Lions and 1998 Buffalo Bills -- have overcome losing their first three games of the season to earn a postseason berth. And only the Chargers managed to accomplish the feat after starting 0-4.

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