Sunday Trends and Indexes 06/01

[pm530]

Arena Football League – Write up

AFL
Write-up


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Sunday, June 1
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Sunday's Arena Football game

Utah (3-10) @ Grand Rapids (4-8)-- Visiting Blaze won three of last four games after 0-9 start; they're 3-3 vs spread as dog on road, with road losses by 3-8-8-17-14-10 points. Grand Rapids lost lost four in row, seven of last eight games; they're 2-1 as a favorite, however. Under is 4-1-1 in last six Rampage games.

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[pm530]

MLB


Sunday, June 1


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Sunday Night Baseball
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Sunday Night Baseball: Dodgers at Mets

Los Angeles Dodgers at New York Mets (-166, 7 1/2)

Two of baseball’s biggest markets, as well as two of baseball’s biggest underachievers, meet in ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. The Mets, floating around .500 and sitting in fourth place in the NL East, will host the Dodgers, who are also floating around .500 but are sitting in second place in the NL West. Either way, neither team has lived up to the preseason expectations bestowed upon them.

The Mets will send prized offseason acquisition Johan Santana to the mound tonight. This is just the kind of game that Santana was brought in to pitch as New York needs a good showing in front of a national audience. Santana has been good this year but hardly worth the nearly $17 million he is making this year. Opponents are hitting .250 against him this year and he owns a far-from-spectacular 3.41 ERA. Most importantly, though, the Mets are 8-3 in the 11 games that he has started.

Injuries throughout the Dodgers lineup have robbed them of veteran hitters. Andruw Jones, Rafael Furcal and Nomar Garciaparra are all on the disabled list while Jeff Kent may soon join them with back spasms. These injuries have left Los Angeles with a bevy of relatively inexperienced, but very talented, players around the horn. That talent hasn’t shown through yet, though, as the Dodgers were averaging just 2.5 runs per game in the 10 games prior to this series.

The Dodgers will send Major League Baseball rookie and Japanese import Hiroki Kuroda to the mound. While Kuroda is young in major league experience, he’s old in overall experience as he is 33-years-old with a load of experience playing in Japan. The early returns have been positive, especially on the road and in the month of May. Kuroda owns a 2.87 ERA in May and a 2.82 ERA on the road. His road success hasn’t resulted in wins though as poor run support has left him with a 1-4 mark away from home.

New York boasts a lineup full of high-salaried, big-name players. Unfortunately for Mets fans, those big names and even bigger salaries haven’t produced the kind of production that was expected. The Mets are 18th in baseball in home runs and 19th in team batting average. They’ve come up with some timely hits though, averaging 4.8 runs per game.

Neither one of tonight’s pitchers has a lot of history against the opposing lineup. Santana has just one interleague game against the Dodgers from the 2006 season. He was dominant, though, pitching seven shutout innings to pick up the win. Kuroda started one game against New York earlier this year and it wasn’t pretty. He lasted just 3.1 innings, giving up four runs on eight hits.

The Mets and Dodgers met earlier this year in Los Angeles. The Dodgers took two out of three, winning the first two games before coming up on the losing end of a 12-1 game. Los Angeles has struggled at Shea Stadium in recent years, going 3-6 in the last nine meetings before this series and scoring just 3.7 runs per game in those contests. That lack of production has led to the last four meetings in New York staying under the total.

With New York and Los Angeles both playing in this game there is bound to be a lot of action, especially with the game being on ESPN. The Mets, with Santana toeing the rubber, will get a majority of that action but that doesn’t mean there isn’t value to be had with the Dodgers. Which side will you take?

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