Yankees, Blue Jays open key series with weekday matinee
Baseball Betting Lines
07/03/2009 -
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The New York Yankees will try to start a new winning streak
this afternoon, when they play the first of four straight games versus the
American League East-rival Toronto Blue Jays in the Bronx.
New York had a seven-game winning streak come to an end with Thursday's 8-4
loss to the Seattle Mariners in the finale of a three-game series at the new
Yankee Stadium. Prized free agent acquisition CC Sabathia was pounded for six
runs and 10 hits in 5 2/3 innings of work to absorb the loss. He also walked
three and struck out eight batters.
"It was frustrating because we scored four runs," said Sabathia. "It should be
enough to get the win, but I just wasn't on today. My delivery was just one
of those days where I couldn't get the ball down. It was off the plate and put
me in some tough counts."
Hideki Matsui belted a two-run homer and drove in three runs, while Robinson
Cano had three hits and scored twice for the Yankees, who are now three games
off Boston's lead in the AL East. Nick Swisher drove in the other run in
defeat, which put the Yankees two games ahead of Tampa Bay for the AL Wild
Card lead. Texas is third at 2 1/2 games behind New York.
Former Blue Jay A.J. Burnett gets the call for the Yankees Friday and will try
for a measure of revenge against his one-time employer. Burnett faced Toronto
for the first time since joining the Yankees on May 12 at Rogers Centre, where
he allowed five runs and seven hits in 7 2/3 innings of a 5-1 setback.
Burnett, who pitched for Toronto from 2006-2008, is 1-1 with a 3.24 earned run
average in two lifetime starts against the Jays. He has won four of his last
six outings overall, including a 5-0 win over the Mets his last time out on
Saturday. The righty tossed seven shutout innings and allowed three walks with
10 strikeouts to improve to 6-4 in 15 starts this season, while lowering his
ERA from 4.24 to 3.93.
The Jays will open a 10-game road trip against the Yankees, Rays and Orioles
today and ended a four-game losing streak with a 5-0 victory versus Tampa
Bay Wednesday at Rogers Centre. Starting pitcher Ricky Romero won his sixth
game of the season with eight shutout innings of four-hit ball, striking out
eight batters and walking only one.
"It helps a lot when everyone is on your side and everyone on your team is
backing you up," Romero said. "It's not a one-man show out there. It's nine
guys trying to grind it out and trying to get a win."
Adam Lind, Scott Rolen and Rod Barajas all helped Romero out with solo homers
and Marco Scutaro doubled in a run for Toronto, which won for the second time
in its last seven tries and sits seven games off the pace in the AL East. The
Jays are also four games behind the Yankees in the Wild Card race.
Toronto will send Brian Tallet to the hill on Friday, and he is 5-5 with a
4.47 earned run average in 19 games (15 starts) this season. He fell to 1-2
over his last four trips to the hill and most recently dropped a 5-4 decision
to the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday. Tallet surrendered five runs -- four
earned -- and eight hits in six innings of work versus the Phils.
The left-hander out of LSU took on the Yankees in a 3-2 loss on May 14, but
did not factor in the outcome after yielding a pair of runs and four hits in
six innings. In 21 career games (1 start) against New York, spanning 34 1/3
innings, Tallet is 1-0 with a 2.88 ERA.
The Yankees won two of three matchups in Toronto from May 12-14 and have won
four of the six most recent meetings between the teams.
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<< Mariners end Yankees' seven-game win streak
Bronx, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Russell Branyan belted a two-run homer and the
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York's winning streak at seven contests.
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Ramirez, Marlins host Pirates in Miami >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Hanley Ramirez will try to stretch his franchise-record RBI
streak to 11 games this evening when the Florida Marlins begin a three-game
series with the Pittsburgh Pirates at Land Shark Stadium.
Florida, meanwhile, has
Braves try to stay hot in opener vs. Nats >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Atlanta Braves try to push their season-high winning
streak to five games this evening when they open a three-game series with the
lowly Washington Nationals at Nationals Park.
Although it still sits in fourth pl
Cubs' Zambrano takes mound against Milwaukee >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Carlos Zambrano takes aim at his first win in five starts
this afternoon when the Chicago Cubs continue their four-game series with the
Milwaukee Brewers at Wrigley Field.
Zambrano was roughed up by the Chicago White S
Serena and Venus reach fourth Wimbledon doubles final >>
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Serena and Venus, will appear in their fourth Wimbledon doubles final on
Saturday.
The fourth-seeded sisters drilled a top-seeded tandem of Zimbabwe's Cara
Road-weary Phils return home to host Mets >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Philadelphia Phillies limp back home tied atop the NL
East after a dreadful road trip. Tonight, they try to improve upon their
horrific play in front of their own fans when they open a three-game series
against
Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?
Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.
“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.
“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “
What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?
There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).
Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).
How the Opening Line Is Made
The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.
Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.
Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.
Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.
The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.
A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.
Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:
Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game
Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)
The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.
Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.
For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.
Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."
“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”
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