Couldn’t find a good Padres dog today for the picture to go with this post so you’ll have to make do with a picture of Jake Peavy wearing an old school Padres uniform.  Baseball betting for Saturday takes us out West where we’ve got the ‘Battle of SoCal’ between the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers.  The Dodgers are trying to get back into the NL West race after a slow start, and have won 7 of their last 10.  The Padres are trying to maintain their lead in the same division–they’re 2 1/2 games up on second place San Francisco and 4 games up on the Dodgers.  This game goes at 5:35 PM Pacific from Petco Field:

SAN DIEGO PADRES VS. LOS ANGELES DODGERS:

The second leg of the Triple Crown takes place Saturday at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course with the Preakness Stakes.   The race features many of the same suspects that we saw in the Kentucky Derby, along with a few ‘fresh faces’ that skipped the ‘Run For The Roses’.  One thing we won’t see is the insanely huge field that ran two weeks ago at Churchill Downs.  Originally, there were 13 horses entered in the Preakness but only 12 will start on Saturday after Hurricane Ike was forced to withdraw due to lameness in his left hind leg.

THE PREAKNESS STAKES

This should be a much different race than the Kentucky Derby, primarily due to what we *won’t* see:

–We won’t see a ridiculously huge field: The 20 horse field at the Kentucky Derby looked more like a rodeo than a horse race.  We’ll have a manageable 12 horse field on Saturday.

So we’ve got very little to bet on for Friday *except* baseball.  There are two Arena Football games on the board but that’s it.  This weekend should be a good one, however, as the NHL and NBA playoffs continue, plus we’ve got NASCAR and MMA.  We’ll also have full coverage as those majestic thoroughbred horses return to action–and, no, I’m not talking about the WNBA which kicks off their season on Saturday night (of course if you’re one of the hundreds of people that watches the WNBA you already know that).  The second leg of the Triple Crown, The Preakness Stakes, goes Saturday from Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course.

Game 7 between the Montreal Canadiens and Pittsburgh Penguins gives us a nice hockey betting value opportunity.  Not content with having knocked the Presidents’ Cup winning Washington Capitals out of the playoffs, the Habs now have the defending Stanley Cup champions on the ropes.  Montreal had the fewest points of any playoff team heading into the postseason, but here they are one win away from playing in the Conference Finals.  Tonight’s game goes at 4:05 PM Pacific from Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh.

PITTSBURGH PENGUINS VS. MONTREAL CANADIENS:

So what happened to the Montreal Canadiens?  Have they been possessed by the spirits of “Boom Boom” Geoffrion, Maurice Richard, Toe Blake and Jacques Plante?  After losing a 6-3 decision to Pittsburgh in Game 1 its been nothing but close hard fought games since then.  Jaroslav Halek is playing out of his mind and since the opening game loss the Habs have allowed only 10 goals in 5 games.  Michael Cammalleri, who came over from Calgary in the offseason, has been Montreal’s offensive catalyst scoring six goals in six games.