Braden faces Angels in first start since perfecto

Baseball Betting Lines

05/14/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Now that the dust has settled on the 19th perfect game in Major League history and all the television appearances have subsided, Oakland Athletics starter Dallas Braden will get back to work tonight in the opener of a three-game road series versus the rival LA Angels of Anaheim.

Braden tossed the second perfect game in the history of the Athletics last Sunday in a 4-0 win against the Tampa Bay Rays at the Coliseum. He struck out six batters and became the first A's pitcher to record a perfect game since Jim "Catfish" Hunter accomplished the feat on May 8, 1968 against Minnesota. Braden's perfect game was the 14th no-hitter in the history of the franchise and first since Dave Stewart turned the trick on June 29, 1990 at Toronto.

The left-handed Braden needed just 109 pitches to complete the remarkable performance and is the first pitcher to throw a perfect game since Mark Buehrle tossed one for the Chicago White Sox on July 23, 2009. Braden is also the second pitcher this season to throw a no-hitter in the majors, as Colorado ace Ubaldo Jimenez no-hit the Atlanta Braves on April 17. Johnny Vander Meer is the only pitcher in history to throw no-hitters in consecutive starts.

Braden is 4-2 with a 3.33 ERA in seven 2010 starts and ended a personal two- game losing streak against the Rays. He beat the Angels on April 11 by holding them to three runs in six innings of a 9-4 victory. Braden is 2-3 in 10 career games, six of which have been starts, against Anaheim.

Oakland dropped the last two portions of its three-game series at Texas earlier in the week and suffered a 2-1 loss in 12 innings in yesterday's finale. Vladimir Guerrero drove in Michael Young in the bottom of the 12th off of A's closer Andrew Bailey to lead the Rangers.

"I just missed my spot," Bailey said on the team's site. "That's when you go back to the drawing board and come back out there the next day."

Jake Fox had three hits and Josh Donaldson knocked in the lone run for Oakland, which got six innings of one-run ball and eight strikeouts from starter Ben Sheets.

The Athletics had won three in a row and five of six games prior to their two straight losses to Texas. They are now two games behind the Rangers for the lead in the American League West division.

Meanwhile, the Angels have been struggling lately and are coming off consecutive losses versus the Rays after winning Monday's series opener. In Wednesday's 4-3 setback at the Big A, Anaheim starter Jered Weaver fanned a career-high 12 batters but came out on the losing end, as he gave up six hits and four runs -- one earned -- over seven innings.

"I tried to keep my team in the game and I did that," Weaver said. "The 12 strikeouts would have looked a lot better if we won the game, 4-3."

Howie Kendrick ended with three hits and drove in a run for the Angels, who lost for the 10th time in 13 tries.

The Angels, who are a game ahead of last-place Seattle in the AL West, will send Joe Saunders to the mound Friday night. Saunders lost his first two starts of the season before winning his only game so far in 2010, when he allowed two unearned runs in eight innings at Toronto on April 17.

Since then he's 0-3 with an 8.31 earned run average in four starts and last took the hill in a 4-3 Angels' victory at Seattle last Saturday. Saunders did not record a decision and gave up three runs -- one earned -- in 5 2/3 innings of work. He lost to Oakland back on April 11, when he was reached for four runs in six innings of a 9-4 defeat to Braden.

In 15 career starts against the Athletics, Saunders is a solid 9-4 with a 4.13 earned run average.

Oakland won two of three meetings with Anaheim back in early April, but the Angels are 12-7 in the last 19 matchups between the division foes.

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

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