Uggly Bearded Pandas

Tonight in the Atlanta San Fransico MLB Series, the sports fan will be treated in watching watch MLB players with colorful nicknames such as Uggly, The Beard, and The Panda. The World Champions San Fransico Giants are looking to put much distance between them and the hard stretch where they lost 5-11 in last 16 until recently taking two games in Florida. The Giants are seeking tonight their first three game winning streak since mid July. The Atlanta Braves retired former Manager Bobby Cox's uniform this weekend, but lost their series with the Chicago Cubs and long time announcer Ernie Johnson who passed on this weekend. Atlanta starting pitcher Tim Hudson is 12-7 3.18 ERA 1.09 WHIP and may be pitching the best baseball of the season and maybe at this point in his career. Hudson has won his last three starts with a 1.69 ERA and has gone at least seven innings in his previous six outings. Hudson also seems to be the go to man against San Fransico with a 2-0 record and 1.17 ERA in his last four versus the Giants and 6-4 3.34ERA in 14 outings in this matchup. Bumgarner is 7-11 3.53 ERA 1.25 WHIP for San Fransico and is coming off one of his sharpest apperances where he only allowed 4 hits and 1 walk and 10 K's and will be trying to peg back to back wins tonight for only the second time this season. Prior to his last start, Bumgarner gave up up 9 Runs, 13 Hits amd 5 BB in 12 Innings Pitched. Bumgarner is 3-5 3.06 ERA in 11 road starts and is 0-4 versus NL East Opponents. Both pitchers seem to have a fairly good command at not allowing Home Run Balls however as both combined have only issued three in their last three games. Therefore we will look to hits, walks and RBI's today as the focus and discover Hudson in roughly 155 Innings Pitched has allowed 132 Hits while Bumgarner in 145 Innings Pitched has issued 149 Hits or simply Hudson less Hits with more Innings Pitched. The Giants rank 3rd worse in Base On Balls Allowed at 3.6 per game in the National League while Atlanta ranks 1st in the National League in Base On Balls Received at 3.9 per game. In 4160 At Bats this season, Atlanta has 475 RBI's in contrast to San Fransico's 4101 At Bats with 388 RBI's. With these statistics, Atlanta could see an edge in number of base runners aboard but will have to improve on their .220 average againsts Left Handed Starters to convert runners to runs. San Fransico has 70 Stolen Bases on the season with 47 in road games while Atlanta has 54 Stolen Bases for the year so Hudson will also have to have a good strikeout talley. The Giants must improve on fielding where they have 82 errors in comparison to 69 Atlanta mistakes.Tonight we will look the the Atlanta - 1/2 First Five Innings in expectation of Hudson continuing his less Hits to more Innings Pitched combined with a better offensive performance from Catcher McCann who went 0-4 yesterday coming back from injury. Beltran, Huff, and Torres are questonable to doubtful for Monday's game so a few threats for Hudson will be sidelined. Bumgarner has only faced the Braves once where he gave up 4 runs in 2 2/3 Inning Pitched and could be susceptible tonight to Bourn, Prado and Uggla in contrast to Hudson with his track record against San Fransico overall. Source: ESPN MLB Preview and The Spread.

Some Player Props to keep me occupied also tonight. Hudson K's Over 5 +135 Hudson has gone to the 7th inning in the majority of his starts Prado Scores A Run +110 Seems to get on base numerous times during seriesUggla A Home Run + 440 The htting streak may be broken but Uggla has hit many Home Runs in the past monthFreeman H+R+RBI's Over 2 -110 Freeman a front runner for National League Rookie Of The Yea.r See if we can catch him on a good night against Bumgarner

Good luck tonight...tailed on all plays!

Chipper Jones out tonight so Prado will have the hot corner. I like the lineup when Constanza and Heyward are both in the mix. Constanza and Bourn = Speed On the Bags with Heyward another Swat Bat and deep range covering gaps in the field. McCann should be back up to speed today after an atypical offensive and defensive day yesterday. Braves swept the Giants on the West Coast in the spring so the potential is there but must execute the small things to carry the wins over into fruitation again. Hope we have a big night. Will be underway in Hot Lanta shortly.

Hope you don't mind me posting this in your thread. This is a big series and I am going to go out on a limb and say one of these two teams will not make the playoffs.

A great deal depends on both teams being able to get players healthy for the final stretch of the season.

Atlanta played some sloppy defense to start the game. Hudson not as sharp but should dial in shortly as the norm.

MCCANN Takes a Solo Shot with 2 outs. Sweet.

A nifty DP and a Hudson K makes for a quick top of the 2nd.

There is an RBI with Freeman coming home.

Both teams have been tagged with an error early. Hope this isn't going to be a sloppy game. 2-0 Atlanta after two.

A 123 Inning for Hudson. So far so good.

Hudson hitting batters and 2 Sac runs with an error to set the whole mess up. 2-2. Might be hard to pull it out now.

God I don't what got into Hudson. Pitching a decent game and then just ka plewey.

Painful

The Uggly Bearded Panda does indeed turn out Ugly as our Hudson Less Hits More Innings Pitched theory does not pan out with extreme help from some costly errors along the way. Sorry for the Lemon tonight guys.

Very Painful as The Panda was not even playing after the 1st. Just an around kick in the manhood for Monday night.

Freeman has a hit and a run waiting on another to cash Hudson well below speed with only 1K Prado has not scored and Uggla no Home Runs for the Prop count. Maybe something will turn our way.

Here comes The Beard.

Braves get one off The Beard. 4-3 Giants.