Cards beat Giants 3-1 in rain-delayed Game Three, Yanks/Tigers ppd

Matt Carpenter hit a two-run home and St Louis rode out a 3 1/2 hour rain delay to beat the San Francisco 3-1 in Game III of their NLCS series in St Louis. Carpenter was forced into service when Carlos Beltran hurt his knee running out a double play in the first inning. Beltran is a lifetime .375 hitter in the post-season and leads the MLB with eight playoff extra-base hits but the Cardinals didn’t miss a beat with Carpenter who took Matt Cain deep in the third inning. Kyle LOhse got the win despite yielding a season high five walks.

Game IV of the Yankees/Tigers ACLS series was postponed. Detroit leads 3-0.

Both league championship series resume on Thursday at starting with the Yankees/Tigers Game IV at 4:05 PM EST in Detroit. You will need to check the pitching matchups in this one. Yesterday’s rainout would have featured Sabathia vs Scherzer but today Andy Pettitte is a listed -117 favorite over Doug Fister. Scherzer has been battling injuries and wasn’t expected to pitch more than five innings so the change to Fister on full rest makes sense. Can’t imagine the Yankees going down with the Sabathia bullet still in the chamber. He won all three of his starts against the Tigers this year.

At 8:05 PM EST, the Giants and Cardinals square off in Game IV of the NLCS. Tim Lincecum gets the start for the Giants against Adam Wainwright. The Cardinals are -132 favorites with the total 7 shaded 15 cents to the under. Lincecum hasn’t started in 19 days but has a 1.08 ERA in three relief appearances for San Francisco. “The Freak” allowed 12 runs in 10 innings in his final two regular season starts but did not face the Cardinals in 2012. Wainwright is 1-2 with a 5.68 ERA in seven starts since September 1st and owns a 4.61 ERA against the Giants in 2012.

Derek Jeter will require surgery on his fractured left anke and his expected recovery time is expected to be 4-5 months meaning he might not be ready for opening day of 2013. More to follow.

NFL News and Notes

Week Seven of the NFL kicks off tonight with a key NFC West showdown between the Seahawks and 49ers. Seattle is coming off an improbable road win at New England while the 49ers were unexpectedly manhandled at home by the New York Giants. San Francisco is a full touchdown favorite at Candlestick Park, the total is 37. No love lost between these two HCs who also battled in the Pac 10. San Francisco is 16-4-2 ATS in their L22 games off a straight up loss but keep in mind that NFC underdogs are 32-5 vs spread this year, 4-1 as divisional road dogs.

College Football News and Notes

Two games in college football tonight. The No.2 ranked Oregon Ducks travel to Tempe to face the 5-1 Arizona State Sun Devils. The Quack Attack open as 10 point favorites but has been bet down to -8. The high/low is stuck at 68 1/2. Oregon has scored 42+ points this year but have played just one true road game, a 42-25 struggle at Fresno State. The Ducks have won their last five visits here by an average of 24 ppg. ASU is 4-0-1 in their last five games a s home dog. Kickoff is at 9:00 PM EST.

Resurgent Houston visits SMU in CUSA action. The Cougars are -4.5 point road favorites with the over/under 59. Houston has recorded three straight wins after an 0-3 start. They’ve won the last six game in the series, the last three by 24+ points. The Mustangs are off a horrific loss to Tulane, both their wins have come by way of shutout.

The boys at Bookmaker look at Saturday’s key matchups

NBA News and Notes

The Minnesota Timberwolves have lost all-star forward Kevin Love 6-8 weeks because of a broken right hand suffered Wednesday morning during a workout. This a devastating injury for the up and coming Wolves who are already missing Ricky Rubio who is recovering from knee surgery. Love will miss about 20 games or about a quarter of the season. Love has emerged as one of the league’s premier players averaging 26.0 points and 13.3 rebounds per game last season. He’s a deadly 3-point shooter while still a monster on the glass. The Wolves are essentially losing 26.5 percent of the points per game and more than 30 percent of their rebounding production. This is a crushing injury that will be tough to overcome in the ultra-competitive NBA West.

NHLPA negative on new league offer

In NHL lockout news, the two sides still appear to be far apart as the new proposal from the league that offered a 50-50 split in hockey-related revenue and a full 82 game schedule was labeled by the players as, “too one-sided”.

From NHLPA union head Donald Fehr

– “Simply put, the owners’ new proposal, while not quite as Draconian as their previous proposals, still represents enormous reductions in player salaries and individual contracting rights. As you will see, at the 5 per cent industry growth rate the owners predict, the salary reduction over six years exceeds $1.6 billion. What do the owners offer in return?”

– “The proposal does represent movement from their last negotiating position, but still represents very large, immediate and continuing concessions by players to owners, in salary and benefits (the Players’ Share) and in individual player contracting rules.”

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