Top of the Ticket - Run Line

-1.5 RUNS,LOS ANGELES DODGERS (Garland)-vs- Pittsburgh Pirates (Karstens)

4* #953 L.A. DODGERS Run Line over PITTSBURGH

Both the Dodgers as a team and Jon Garland as an individual are showing signs of gearing up to their ?A? Game as the playoffs approach, and with a 2.5 game over St. Louis for the N.L. home field advantage there is little chance of them taking Pittsburgh lightly. That opens the door for an easy win vs. a floundering team that is no a free fall of historic dimensions, and the Run Line enabales us to take full advantage in a short price range. The Pirates are now on a dismal 3-23 slide in which 19 of the losses have come by two runs or more, and it is not as though Jeffrey Karstens brings anything special to turn that around. If anything tonight?s starter could make things even uglier. Karstens lost his spot in the starting rotation early in the season and has done nothing to earn it back, and his current form out of the bullpen is abysmal ? he has been scored on in eight of his lat 11 appearances, a span in which he sports a 12.32 ERA and 2.41 WHIP. This is hardly the lineup that leads that form to a turnaround, and it means a likely early entrance for the worst middle relief corps in the sport. The Dodgers began kicking things into a higher gear when they scored 22 runs in last weekend?s series vs. the Giants, and added 25 more the last three nights in Washington. The return to form of Rafael Furcal (10-14 in the Washington series) brings a catalyst to the top of the order again, and there is not an easy out to be found, which taxes the kind of pitchers the Pirates have to counter with. Meanwhile Garland has worked to a 3-0/2.33 in a Dodger uniform, including eight shutout innings. vs. the Giants in his last outing, and is in a prime audition spot to make the post-season rotation tonight. He should have little trouble finessing his way through the Pirate lineup, and with Jonathan Broxton only working once in the Washington series, and George Sherrill only throwing 26 pitches in the last four days, the latter stages are in good hands as well.