2011 April at LinesMaker

Why Prospective Teams Shouldn’t Give Up on Ilya Bryzgalov

When it comes to assess­ing a player’s per­for­mance in the play­offs, many peo­ple fix­ate on the results rather than why some­thing happened. Ilya Bryz­galov allowed two back-breaking goals to begin the Phoenix Coy­otes’ poten­tially fatal Game 3 loss and both of them made the excel­lent Russ­ian goalie look pretty bad. Let’s be hon­est, Bryz­galov hasn’t been able to fol­low up his great reg­u­lar sea­son play with out­stand­ing work in the post­sea­son, lead­ing many to won­der if his pend­ing free agent stock is plummeting. One thing that peo­ple seem to over­look... 

Lilly’s 7 Scoreless Innings Lift Dodgers

LOS ANGELES –The Dodgers’ start­ing rota­tion has been doing a superb job of set­ting the tone in the first inning. Tim Hud­son has been hav­ing great dif­fi­culty keep­ing oppo­nents off the score­board early. Those two trends con­tin­ued on Mon­day night, as Lilly pitched seven score­less innings and James Loney had two RBIs off Hud­son dur­ing a three-run first that pro­pelled Los Ange­les to a 4–2 vic­tory over the Atlanta Braves. “It’s always nice to get early runs, espe­cially when it’s against a qual­ity pitcher like Hud­son,” Lilly said. “When you... 

Monday’s Scores and Highlights

Giants 8, Rock­ies 1: Lince­cum had a no hit­ter into the sev­enth inning. As I was watch­ing it in the den, my wife walked in. She loves Tim Lince­cum, so I said “hey, your boyfriend has a no-hitter going in the sev­enth.”  She said “Is that good?”  I’ve been mar­ried to this woman for almost 16 years and we’ve been together for over 20 and absolutely zero base­ball knowl­edge has rubbed off on her. There’s an aggres­sive, tena­cious amount of igno­rance there, bor­der­ing on the hos­tile. Maybe it’s for the best. If she was into base­ball, she prob­a­bly... 

Rangers 7–0 at Home for First Time

ARLINGTON, Texas —C.J. Wil­son is start­ing to feel like him­self again. So are the top two hit­ters in the Texas Rangers’ lineup. Wil­son struck out nine in seven strong innings while Ian Kinsler and Elvis Andrus both snapped out of extended slumps as the Rangers returned home with a 7–1 vic­tory over the AL West rival Los Ange­les Angels on Mon­day night. “He made pitches when he had to, kept them off bal­ance,” man­ager Ron Wash­ing­ton said about Wil­son, before really break­ing out a smile when asked about the duo at the top of the bat­ting order. “They’re pretty... 

What Missing Velocity? Aroldis Chapman Hits 102.6 Mph After Taking Four Days Off

Aroldis Chap­man had every­one wor­ried last week when his triple-digit fast­ball dripped all the way into the low-90s, lead­ing even team­mates to pub­licly ques­tion his health. How­ever, after being shut down for four days by the Reds he returned to the mound last night look­ing like his usual over­pow­er­ing self against the Pirates, albeit in a mop-up role. Chap­man tossed a score­less ninth inning in a 9–3 loss and MLB.com’s pitch-fx sys­tem tracked his aver­age fast­ball at 100.3 miles per hour. Not quite the 104–106 mph range that cre­ated so many head­lines last... 

Randolph to Sign Multi-year Extension with Grizzlies

SAN ANTONIO – Zach Ran­dolph is stick­ing with the Mem­phis Griz­zlies four more years, and by the looks of things pun­ish­ing the San Anto­nio Spurs for at least another week. Ran­dolph said Mon­day he’ll sign a four-year exten­sion with Mem­phis, a deal the 29-year-old said was in the works long before he led the eighth-seeded Griz­zlies to their first play­off vic­tory, 16 sea­sons after the fran­chise debuted in Vancouver. He said he agreed to the exten­sion after the front office assured him that re-signing 26-year-old Marc Gasol was next. The big and bruis­ing for­ward... 

Golden Bear Thinks Tressel Took One for the Team

In the month or so since it was announced that Jim Tres­sel would hold him­self to the “same stan­dard” as his play­ers and imposed a five-game sus­pen­sion on him­self, there’s been no real hard news regard­ing “the episode”.  And, to be per­fectly blunt, there’s still no real news. How­ever, when (Warn­ing! Per­sonal opin­ion ahead!) the great­est golfer of all-time who also hap­pens to be a grad­u­ate of Ohio State chimes in on the sit­u­a­tion, we’ll go ahead and make note of it.  Although we get the feel­ing the school’s pres­i­dent and ath­letic... 

NFLPA Pushes a “Lift the Lockout” Petition

In the weeks before the expi­ra­tion of the now-expired Col­lec­tive Bar­gain­ing Agree­ment, the NFLPA had made a push to get fans to sign a peti­tion aimed at block­ing the lock­out.  More than five weeks into the lock­out and as a court-ordered medi­a­tion process com­mences its sec­ond week, the NFLPA* is mak­ing a new push to “lift the lockout.” A reader has for­warded to us an e-mail that appar­ently is being sent to every­one who signed the orig­i­nal “block the lock­out” petition. “The play­ers of the National Foot­ball League want to thank you for your... 

Tennis Betting: Montanes Advances in Barcelona Open

No.  11 Albert Mon­tanes rolled past Tey­mu­raz Gabashvili, 6–2, 6–2 on Mon­day, to win the first round a the Barcelona Open ten­nis tour­na­ment in Spain. Clinch­ing a straight-set vic­tory, Mon­tanes won 57 per­cent of the points in a lengthy game that last for 1 hour and 47 minutes. With –600 bet­ting odds at Lines­Maker, Albert Mon­tanes was the favorite against Tey­mu­raz Gabashvili (+350) to win the first round. Listed at –135 on ten­nis bet­ting lines at Lines­Maker, 13th seeded Thomaz Bel­lucci failed to advance after los­ing to San­ti­ago Giraldo (-105),... 

Penguins Hold Strong Against Lightning, Take 2–1 Series Lead; Kunitz Suspension Coming?

It wasn’t pretty and there will be a lot of things aside from the game that will be dis­cussed aside from the game, but Pitts­burgh earned a huge Game 3 win in a rough game with Tampa Bay tak­ing out the Light­ning 3–2 and tak­ing a 2–1 series lead. Despite the Light­ning get­ting a pair of power play goals from Mar­tin St. Louis, Tyler Kennedy’s early third period goal broke a 2–2 tie and gave the Pen­guins a big win to take back home ice advan­tage in the series. Marc-Andre Fleury stood tall in this game mak­ing 25 saves and again pro­vid­ing the Pen­guins with the steady...