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Cardinals go for ninth win in a row, sweep of slumping PhilsBaseball Betting Lines07/22/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Adam Wainwright will try to become just the second 15-game winner in the major leagues and remain unbeaten at home when he attempts to lead the St. Louis Cardinals to their ninth straight win and a four-game sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies today at Busch Stadium. Colorado Rockies pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez is currently tops in the bigs with 15 wins, while Wainwright is right behind with a 14-5 record and a 2.02 earned run average in 20 starts this season. He has won four straight starts to go along with a 0.31 ERA and hasn't allowed a run over his last 19 innings. After going the distance in a win over Milwaukee on July 4, Wainwright threw eight shutout innings in a victory at Houston five days later. He then tossed six scoreless frames in a 2-0 triumph versus Los Angeles last Saturday, as he scattered five hits and struck out three batters. Wainwright pushed his 2010 Busch Stadium mark to 10-0 in 10 tries and owns a 1.31 ERA in that stretch. The right-hander is 2-1 in seven career games (five starts) against the Phillies and did not record a decision when he faced them in a 2-1 loss in Philadelphia back on May 4. Wainwright limited Philadelphia to a run and four hits through eight innings of work. Wainwright's staff mate Jaime Garcia picked up his ninth win of the season last night by holding the slumping Phillies to a run and four hits with six strikeouts through seven innings. Garcia (9-4), Wainwright and Chris Carpenter are a combined 39-21 so far this season. "[Garcia] was aggressive. He didn't really get behind the count too often," said Cardinals manager Tony La Russa. Matt Holliday homered and Felipe Lopez drove in two runs for the National League Central-leading Cardinals, who have won eight straight and will try for nine consecutive wins for the first time since the 2004 campaign. St. Louis, which is 1 1/2 games ahead of Cincinnati, hasn't swept the Phillies in four games at home since Aug. 4-7, 1986. The last time St. Louis tasted defeat was July 10 at Houston. It will hit the road for six games against the Cubs and Mets after this afternoon's contest. Philadelphia has dropped four in a row and fell to 1-6 on an eight-game road trip following last night's loss. A lack of runs and poor pitching has hampered the Phillies lately, and they could make a move for a pitcher with the trade deadline looming. In Wednesday's four-run loss in the Gateway City, Joe Blanton fell to 3-6 on the season after he surrendered five runs -- three earned -- and seven hits in seven innings of work. Ryan Howard belted his 22nd home run of the season in the fifth inning to account for Philadelphia's scoring. "What can I say?" Phils manager Charlie Manuel said on the team's site. "We come out here about every day and we do the same thing. We haven't been scoring runs. I've been giving everybody in that locker room a chance, I feel like. If you can hit, please do. What the hell? That's kind of how I look at it. That's not taking no shot at one guy. That's covering a lot of territory." The Phillies will head home for seven games against Colorado and Arizona following this afternoon's contest and sit seven games behind Atlanta in the NL West standings. Phillies lefty Cole Hamels pitched well enough for a win the last time he faced St. Louis, but was able to set his team up for a victory with eight innings of one-run ball and eight strikeouts in a 2-1 decision on May 4. Hamels, who is 2-2 in seven career starts against the Cardinals, will take the ball today and is 1-0 with a 1.66 ERA in his last three starts. Hamels, the 2008 World Series MVP, recorded another no-decision in last Saturday's 4-1 victory at the Chicago Cubs and limited the NL Central inhabitants to a run on eight hits in seven innings. The left-hander remained at 7-7 in 19 starts this year and lowered his ERA to 3.63. He hopes to even his road mark tonight, as he sports a 3-4 ledger in nine away starts this season. The Phillies had a four-game winning streak in the Gateway City come to an end with a loss in Monday's opener of this set. St. Louis now leads the season series by a 4-3 count.
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Sportsbook Betting LinesWho 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 MadeThe 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. Why Sports Betting Lines ChangeOnce 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.” To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds. |
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