{"id":15929,"date":"2011-05-31T14:38:09","date_gmt":"2011-05-31T19:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15929"},"modified":"2011-05-31T14:38:31","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T19:38:31","slug":"15929","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/15929-15929\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitchers’ Battle: Florida Marlins at Arizona Diamondbacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida Marlins (30-22)\u00a0 AT Arizona Diamondbacks (30-24)<\/strong>
\nMay 31, 2011 at 9:40 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 ARI -125; FLA +105<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 ARI -125; FLA +104<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 8<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 8.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

SP:\u00a0 FLA- A. Sanchez; ARI- I. Kennedy<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Ian Kennedy will take the mound for the Diamondbacks tonight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tonight’s game pits two of the hottest pitchers against one another and both teams have been relative surprises this season, as neither was expected to be 6 to 8 games over .500 at this early juncture in the season.<\/p>\n

Ian Kennedy takes the mound for the Diamondbacks.\u00a0 Kennedy is 6-1 with a 3.01 ERA and has won all 5 of his last decisions while recording a 1.87 ERA over those 8 games (only 5 of which had decisions).\u00a0 What’s more is that the Diamondbacks have won seven straight games and a win today would match their longest winning streak since April of 2008.\u00a0 They have also won 15 of their last 17 games.<\/p>\n

In Monday’s opening series rout the Diamondbacks had 19 hits (one shy of a club record) as they went on to win 15-4.\u00a0 Kellyl Johnson recorded four extra base hits, two of which were home runs, and if he had recorded a single he would have hit for the cycle.\u00a0 Justin Upton also had a huge game, going 5 of 5 with 3 RBIs, while Miguel Montero matched his career high with 5 RBIs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a very confident team,\u201d Johnson said, \u201ca lot of momentum, a lot of just mojo, a lot of swagger, I mean, all of it, everything you\u2019re looking for in a winning team. It\u2019s been a lot of fun together.\u201d<\/p>\n

For as good as the Diamondbacks have been, they will be facing a very tough pitcher in Anibal Sanchez.\u00a0 Sanchez is 4-1 with a 2.60 ERA.\u00a0 He has, however, struggled badly against the Diamond backs, a team in which he has gone 0-1 in two starts.\u00a0 He gave up 10 runs and 17 hits over 10 1\/3rds innings.\u00a0 He had a no hitter against the Diamondbacks in 2006, but to equate that success with today’s team would be silly since most of the players on Arizona 5 years ago are no longer with the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnibal Sanchez is becoming one of the best pitchers in the major leagues,\u201d Marlins manager Edwin Rodriguez told the team\u2019s official website. \u201cHe\u2019s showing that over and over. He\u2019s in control of the game. He needs to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Arizona is 5-0 SU in their last 5 games and 5-0 SU in their last 5 at home.<\/p>\n

Tonight’s game promises to be a pitchers’ duel as both pitchers are hot.\u00a0 The Marlins are seeking to avoid a third consecutive loss and Sanchez should give them a reasonable chance to do so.\u00a0 Ian Kennedy, as mentioned, has also been red hot.\u00a0 The total of ‘8’ for today’s game may actually prove to be high as I fully expect this game to be a low scoring game, despite the hot hitting of the Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida Marlins (30-22)\u00a0 AT Arizona Diamondbacks (30-24) May 31, 2011 at 9:40 PM EST Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 ARI -125; FLA +105 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 ARI -125; FLA +104 Opening Total:\u00a0 8 Current Total:\u00a0 8.5 SP:\u00a0 FLA- A. Sanchez; ARI- I. Kennedy Tonight’s game pits two of the hottest pitchers against one another and both teams have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[50,130],"class_list":["post-15929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-florida-marlins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15929"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15932,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15929\/revisions\/15932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}