What To Watch Tonight (7/12/08)

LA Angels (55-38) @ Oakland Athletics (51-42), 6:05 PM, KCOP

The Angels lost the first game in this series, 2-9, allowing Oakland to cut their second place deficit down to four games. But, trying to top Jon Garland’s dismal performance last night, Ervin Santana takes the hill against the A’s Dana Eveland. Santana, one of the Angels’ three All-Star pitchers, is 1-0 with a 1.80 ERA against Oakland in three starts this season. Eveland, meanwhile, is 0-1 with a 7.36 ERA against the Angels in two starts this season. If the Athletics can find a way to win, they will even the season series at six wins apiece.

Prediction: Angels

Atlanta Braves (43-50) @ SD Padres (37-56), 7:05 PM, Channel 4

Greg Maddux faces the team that made him into one of the best pitchers of all time. In his eleven seasons with the Braves, Maddux compiled at least fifteen dubyas every single year. Those happy days are long gone now that he’s on the Padres, as he has only three wins this season in nineteen starts. On May 10th, nine weeks ago, Maddux became only the ninth pitcher ever to win a 350th game. Unfortunately, the Padres batters haven’t found a way to help him win again since. Out of his last eleven starts, Maddux has not won despite giving up two or less runs in eight of the games. It’s his longest stretch without a win since 1990. With four more wins, Maddux would tie Clemens for fourth on the all-time victories list. But, that will be hard to do since the Friars are the lowest scoring team in baseball. By the way, some guy named Charlie Morton is pitching for the Braves.  He’s pretty terrible.

Prediction: Padres

Florida Marlins (49-44) @ LA Dodgers (45-48), 7:10 PM, KCAL 9

Ricky Nolasco faces Hiroki Kuroda in a matchup of two pitchers who have done very well of late. The Marlins have won in eight of Nolasco’s last nine starts, and Kuroda has not allowed a run in sixteen innings. Florida has now homered in a franchise-record thirteen straight games and they lead the majors with 134 home runs overall. Even though the Dodgers lost the first two games in this four game series, they still sit only one game behind the D’backs for first place in the terrible NL West division. Hopefully Kuroda can shut down those powerful hitters, because we all know that the Dodgers have no chance of outslugging the Marlins.

Prediction: Dodgers

Prediction Accuracy: 33% (2-4)