Twins send Baker to hill in Baltimore

Baseball Betting Lines

07/24/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Struggling to keep pace with the White Sox and Tigers in the AL Central, the Twins will try to solve their road woes when Minnesota battles the Baltimore Orioles in the third installment of a four-game set this evening at Camden Yards.

If the Twins are going to keep up in the AL Central race they will need the likes of Scott Baker to turn his season around. The right-hander has lost four of his last five matchups, falling to a meager 7-9 on the year.

Over his last two outings, Baker has been pounded for 11 runs in just 10 2/3 innings. The most recent setback came against Cleveland, as the Indians tallied six runs on 10 hits.

What has really hurt the veteran hurler has been his performance on the road, where the Oklahoma State product has posted a miserable 1-6 ledger with a 6.66 ERA in nine starts outside of Minnesota.

However, in his career Baker has pitched extremely well against Baltimore, going 4-0 in six outings against the AL East foe, while racking up an impressive 2.52 ERA. Earlier this season, Baker tossed eight outstanding innings against the Orioles, surrendering just one run on three hits, while striking out eight batters.

The Orioles, who currently own the worst record in baseball at 30-65 will send rookie Brian Matusz to the hill. Matsuz has suffered through some rookies woes after a fast start and enters this contest with just one victory in his last 10 starts.

The last time the San Diego University product was on the rubber he did not make it out of the second inning against Toronto, as the Blue Jays punished the young hurler for six runs on five hits and two walks.

It was the 10th loss on the year for Matusz, who has gone winless in nine starts at Camden Yards this season. At home thus far, the Colorado native is 0-6 with a meager 5.57 earned run average.

Earlier this season the southpaw was greeted rudely by the Twins, as Minnesota clobbered the young hurler for six runs on nine hits, chasing him from the contest in the fourth inning.

On Friday, Jeremy Guthrie picked up his first victory in nearly two months thanks to a two-run homer by Luke Scott in the sixth inning, as Baltimore edged Minnesota, 3-2.

Guthrie (4-10), winless in nine starts since beating Oakland on May 25, yielded two runs on six hits in seven effective innings to pick up the win, the Orioles' second in eight games since the All-Star break.

Anthony Slama (0-1) gave up the go-ahead home run to take the loss behind Brian Duensing, who went five innings in his first start of the year and allowed just one run on four hits while walking none.

Joe Mauer went 2-for-4 with a two-run home run for the Twins, who had won two straight and five of seven coming in.

The season series is currently tied at three games apiece, but the Twins have dropped four of their last five matchups at Camden Yards.

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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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