Blue Jays, Orioles set to begin stretch of divisional games

Baseball Betting Lines

05/28/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Already 18 games out of first place in the American League East, the Baltimore Orioles can at least try to have some fun by shaking up the standings with 12 straight matchups against their division opponents.

The Orioles will kick off their tour through the AL East tonight with the first of three straight meetings with the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. They will also visit the Yankees for three games before hosting Boston and New York for six encounters at Camden Yards.

Baltimore has dropped four of five and nine of its last 12 games, including the final two portions of a three-game home series versus the Oakland Athletics. In Thursday's 7-5 loss to the A's, Mark Hendrickson gave up three runs during a decisive five-run eighth inning to absorb the loss and blow a three-run lead for the Orioles, who got seven innings out of starter Brad Bergesen. Bergesen permitted four runs on four hits and three walks.

"You take a three-run lead in there to the eighth and a lot of things happen that don't go your way," said O's manager Dave Trembley. "You make the decisions that you think are the right ones and you hope they work out."

Miguel Tejada drove in two runs, Matt Wieters had two hits and an RBI and Julio Lugo finished 3-for-5 with a run scored in defeat.

Orioles outfielder Adam Jones finished with two hits and has hit in a career- high 13 straight games, going 16-for-50 with a .320 batting average in that time. He has hit safely in 18 of his last 19 contests.

Innings-eater Kevin Millwood could use some offensive firepower when he takes the mound tonight for the O's. Millwood is 0-4 with a 3.71 earned run average in 10 starts and has posted three straight no-decisions. He previously took the hill at Nationals Park in Washington on Sunday and gave up three runs, struck out eight and allowed eight hits in 6 1/3 innings of a 4-3 loss.

Millwood is 0-3 in five road starts this season and will face Toronto for the second time in 2010. He lost to the Blue Jays in a 5-2 decision on April 11 at Camden Yards, where he yielded four runs (1 earned) over 7 2/3 frames. The veteran right-hander is just 2-5 with a 4.80 ERA in 10 career starts against Toronto and is 1-3 in six lifetime starts at Rogers Centre.

Toronto commences its own barrage of matchups with the American League East and will kick off a nine-game homestand Friday versus the Orioles, Rays and Yankees. It will then visit Tampa Bay for three meetings to complete the 12- game journey against division foes.

The Blue Jays have dropped five of seven games and just lost the last two installments of a three-game road set against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. They suffered a 6-5 loss in Wednesday's series finale as Angels outfielder Bobby Abreu drove in the game-winning run with a single in the bottom of the ninth.

Scott Downs was saddled with the loss, while Edwin Encarnacion and Jeremy Reed had two RBI apiece for the Blue Jays, who went 3-5 on an eight-game road trip.

"Our guys never quit. It's another tough loss," Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston said. "I like the way our guys kept battling."

Brandon Morrow started for the Jays and did not factor in the decision after allowing three runs and three hits in five innings.

Toronto is currently tied with Boston at 6 1/2 games off the AL East lead.

Shaun Marcum will lead the Jays into tonight's series opener and has been on a roll since late April. Marcum opened the season 0-1 with a 4.00 earned run average in his first four starts, but is 4-0 with a 2.03 ERA in six starts since. He is coming off last Sunday's 12-4 win at Arizona in which he scattered three runs through five innings. Marcum also struck out eight batters to push his 2010 mark to 4-1 in 10 starts.

The right-hander faced Baltimore earlier this season in a 5-2 win at Camden Yards, but did not record a decision with six innings of two-run ball. Marcum is only 1-2 with a 5.68 ERA in 11 career games -- nine starts -- in this series.

Toronto swept the Orioles in three games back in early April and has won eight of the past 11 contests between the clubs. Baltimore is winless in its last five visits to Rogers Centre.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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