Thursday's Betting Tips
By Covers.com
Weather to watch
St. Louis Cardinals at Colorado Rockies: A 40 percent chance of thunderstorms with winds expected to blow out to right field at 9 mph.
Los Angeles Angels at Texas Rangers: A balmy temperature of 103 F expected at game time. Winds will be blowing in from right field at 12 mph.
Who’s hot?
Michael Phelps – The American swimmer cruised through the anchor leg of the 4x200-meter freestyle relay to earn his record 19th career medal and 15th gold on Tuesday night. Phelps has three events to go at the London Games– the 200 individual medley, the 100 butterfly and the 4x100 medley relay.
Who’s not?
New York Yankees – The Bronx Bombers snapped a four-game losing skid Wednesday and have dropped nine of their last 13.
Key stat
By narrowly avoiding being no-hit by A.J. Burnett and the Pirates on Tuesday night, the Chicago Cubs extended their MLB-leading active streak of consecutive games with at least one hit to 7,441.
Game of the day
Los Angeles Angels at Texas Rangers- Ryan Dempster makes his Rangers debut.
Injury that shouldn’t be overlooked
Texas Rangers pitcher Neftali Feliz underwent Tommy John surgery Wednesday to repair a tear in his right elbow and will likely be sidelined until next summer. Feliz was 3-1, with a 3.16 ERA in eight games. He has been on the disabled list since May.
Notable quotable
“We'll see. There's no right or wrong decision. There's just journeys in life that we end up taking. We try to make the most out of those.”- Rangers pitcher Ryan Dempster on how he will fare against AL opponents.
Betting notes
Manager Don Mattingly said newly acquired pitcher Brandon League will join Ronald Belisario as the Dodgers' primary eighth-inning relievers, with Kenley Jansen remaining as the team’s closer.
Tigers 3B Miguel Cabrera batted .344 with nine homers and 23 RBIs in July, his best monthly totals in all three categories this season.
New York Mets general manager Sandy Alderson elected to stand pat at the trading deadline - neither acquiring nor trading any talent. Alderson admitted while the team's struggles over the last three weeks were disconcerting, "it's not the end of the season," he said.
The Reds, who already are without 1B Joey Votto, could miss second baseman Brandon Phillips for an extended period of time. He has left consecutive games with a strained left calf and told MLB.com, "I'm not going to be playing for a while."