Bonds homers twice as Giants fall to Cubs

Baseball Betting Lines

07/20/2007 - Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Barry Bonds hit a pair of home runs to move within two of Hank Aaron's all-time record, as the San Francisco Giants fell to the Chicago Cubs, 9-8, in the conclusion of a four-game series at Wrigley Field.

Leading off the second inning, Bonds drove the first pitch he saw from Cubs pitcher Ted Lilly out to right field. The homer drew the Giants within 4-1 and ended an 0-for-21 slump for the left fielder. He did not start the Giants last three games as he gave his ailing knees a few days off.

Home run No. 753 was a three-run blast in the seventh that brought the Giants within one. Will Ohman inherited a pair of runners and was called on to pitch to Bonds. After a lengthy at-bat, Bonds turned on a 3-2 fastball and crushed it to dead center. He finished 3-for-3 with six RBI and three runs scored.

Bonds now has 19 home runs on the season.

Aramis Ramirez went 3-for-5 with two RBI and two runs scored for the Cubs, who have won six of seven. Lilly (10-4) won his sixth straight decision after allowing three runs over five innings.

Two Cubs suffered injuries on the day. First baseman Daryle Ward left in the second with a right calf string, and Cliff Floyd left with a sore neck after a mild collision at first base in the third inning.

Matt Morris (7-6) was tagged for eight runs -- five earned -- over 4 2/3 innings of work for the Giants, who have dropped seven of eight.

The Cubs put up a four-spot in the first to gain control. Alfonso Soriano led off with a double, and Ryan Theriot followed with a sacrifice bunt. Morris committed a throwing error during the sequence, allowing Soriano to score. Daryle Ward stepped in next and slapped a double to left to put runners on second and third for Ramirez, who came through with a base hit to bring another run home. On the play, the Giants committed two more throwing errors as Ward scored to make it 3-0. Jacque Jones added an RBI single later in the frame to cap the rally.

Bonds' homer in the second put the Giants on the board, and he added a two-run single in the third to slice the lead to one.

Chicago, though, provided an answer.

With runners on first and second and two outs in the bottom of the third, Bengie Molina yielded a passes ball that let Floyd score for a 5-3 Cubs advantage.

Ramirez and Angel Pagan added back-to-back RBI doubles in the fourth to up the advantage to four runs, and Soriano's double in the fifth plated Lilly to make it 8-3.

Molina's two-run homer in the sixth cut the deficit to 8-5, but Mike Fontenot responded with a run-scoring single in the home-half of the inning to put the Cubs back up by four.

Bonds' three-run shot in the seventh closed the gap to one.

Carlos Marmol tossed 1 1/3 scoreless inning from there, though, before Bob Howry closed it out in the ninth for his seventh save of the season.

Game Notes

San Francisco Giants activated right-hander Jonathan Sanchez from the 15-day disabled list prior to Thursday's game against the Chicago Cubs...Lilly was facing San Francisco for the first time since the 2003 season, when he was a member of the Oakland Athletics...Morris is 0-3 over his last six starts.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.