Dallas Round-Up | Rangers Running Away – Cowboys’ Rookie Grounded For Preseason

Online football betting players looking to wager on Dallas for the upcoming season will have received some bad news about the Cowboys’ star rookie, who could be behind the eight-ball heading into the regular season.  But we start in the major leagues, where the Texas Rangers are well on their way to the American League West crown.

Texas Rangers

If the Rangers were an NCAA football betting option, they would likely be Boise State, a team who is far ahead of anyone else in their conference.   The Rangers are coming off a tough week in which they faced two teams from their division on the road,  first dropping two of three in Los Angeles to the Angels, and they had split the first two games of their three-game set in Seattle with the Mariners before Thursday night’s finale.  David Murphy had a solid week, hitting .286 with a pair of homers and six RBIs in six games, while Vladdy Guerrero hit just .217 and knocked one out, but he drove in a team-high eight runs during the week.  As for the pitchers, Rich Harden returned from the disabled list to have his best performance in two-plus months in a win over the Angels, but that was probably the highlight of the week as the starting pitching struggled.  Tommy Hunter was hammered for the first time this year, taking his first loss, and it’ll be a test of the 24-year-old’s strength to see if he can bounce back.  Now, heading into Thursday’s game, the Rangers have an eight-game lead over the Angels, and a nine-game lead over the Athletics, who will host the Rangers this weekend in a three-game set.  Texas will be looking to avenge a series loss in Oakland from back in early May. The Rangers will then head to New York to face the Yankees in a possible playoff preview, and Texas was swept at the new Yankee Stadium in June.

Dallas Cowboys

NFL betting players have seen Dez Bryant cause quite the stir in his first camp, first with his “I’m not carrying pads” fiasco, and now the wideout may have to miss the entire preseason with a high ankle sprain.  Owner Jerry Jones questioned whether Bryant should have been practicing that late in the practice, but he backed off his comments and is leaving the coaching to Wade Phillips (for now, anyway).  Another rookie, linebacker Sean Lee, is battling a quadriceps injury, so the Cowboys are just trying to get to the preseason with no more ailments.  Bryant is obviously the more important loss as the Cowboys were trying to get him as many reps as possible, and he even signed a contract to get to camp on time.  This is just bad luck, and online betting players will be hoping that is all for the Cowboys this year.

Texas Rangers Lead the West, Cowboys WR Dez Bryant

Dallas Round-Up – Rangers Extending Lead In West; Cowboys, Bryant Hope To Avoid Holdout

College football betting online is about to get started, but until then, check out the Texas Rangers’ quest for the American League West, and things are looking good for them right now
(on the field, anyway).  Elsewhere in NFL news, the Dallas Cowboys have begun talks to try and avoid a Michael Crabtree situation.

Texas Rangers

Heading into Thursday’s opener of a massive four-game series at home against the rival Los Angeles Angels, the Rangers were five games ahead of the Angels in the West after a pair of series wins.  First, the Rangers proved they could win on the road by taking three of four against the Red Sox in Boston’s venerable Fenway Park, and they rode a 4-2 win in the Boston finale into a two-game romp in Detroit, outscoring the Tigers 16-6 in the first two of the series before falling 4-1 in the final game.  Benji Molina and Ian Kinsler both nailed a couple of homers for the Rangers, who are boosting their MLB betting odds with each win, while Nelson Cruz hit .438 with 11 RBIs over the week for the Rangers.  On the pitching side, young Tommy Hunter continues to dazzle, going 2-0 with a 1.32 ERA in 13.2 innings of work, and the 24-year-old righthander is now 7-0 in nine starts with a 2.09 ERA this season.  Cliff Lee is still looking for his first win for the Rangers since coming over from Seattle, but he’s gone nine innings in each of his starts so far, and he was unlucky to earn a no-decision in an extra-inning loss in Boston last week.  Lee will be on the mound this Thursday against the Angels in search of that elusive win.

Dallas Cowboys

NFL football betting players can practically taste the beginning of the season as camps are almost here, and rosters are becoming a bit clearer.  The Cowboys are hoping that their first-round draft pick will be a part of it all as they’ve begun contract talks with Dez Bryant, the talented but apparently troubled receiver that many are calling the next Michael Irvin.  Bryant would do well to look at the situation of San Francisco’s Michael Crabtree, who played with Texas Tech while Bryant was at Oklahoma State, another Big 12 school.  Crabtree held out for all of camp and the first five weeks of the season in 2009 because he thought he should have been drafted higher, yet wanted more money.  Crabtree was playing catch-up all season, and it was only at the end of the year that we were starting to see how special he could be.  Jerry Jones isn’t shy about splashing around money, so we think this situation will be sorted, and you can bet on Bryant in your best online sportsbook to win Offensive Rookie of the Year.

THE RANGERS REPORT – September 1, 2009

NFL betting is upon us and, while the Rangers have done a good job holding off the Cowboys for our attention this summer, they’ll need a big push to do it in October. They’ve stumbled in the Wildcard race and the Angels seem out of reach in the AL West. Does Texas have anything left in the tank?

Season record: 72-58
AL West rank: 2
World Series odds: 35 to 1

THE LINEUP

As the Rangers showed yesterday, when they cut an 11-run deficit to one before losing 18-10, offense isn’t the problem lately. Michael Young continues what will go down as one of his best seasons; he needs three homers to set a new career high and is on track to post a plus-.900 OPS for the first time in his career. Ian Kinsler has sizzled since returning from the DL, batting .311 with 14 RBI in 16 games.

THE ROTATION

The Ranger arms kept Texas afloat while the bats slumped, but they’re falling on hard times. Derek Holland has been rocked twice in a row after he flourished for most of August. Kevin Millwood has one win in his last six starts. Scott Feldman remains a revelation, having tossed 12.2 scoreless innings over his last two starts (both wins, of course). The Rangers and online betting fans alike hope the rest of the rotation can step up; perhaps Brandon McCarthy, who returned to the big club when the rosters expanded, can give the rotation a shot in the arm.

THE BULLPEN

Frank Francisco posted a 6.97 ERA in August but really hasn’t pitched badly; of the eight runs he allowed that month, six came during his one blown save. He actually held opponents scoreless in nine of his 11 August appearances and thus hasn’t been the problem for Texas.

Neftali Feliz continues to set the world on fire. Stat update: 17.2 innings pitched, 22 strikeouts, one earned run, one walk. Wow. I’m betting management gives him a chance to start next season.

OVERALL OUTLOOK

No matter what happens, 2009 will not go down as a failure for the Rangers. They’ve shown us that their great farm system has set them up for future success the same way the Rays’ system boosted them. If Texas falls short of the playoffs in the end, next season could be an entirely different story, as the young guns will only get better.