Angels, Mariners continue set at Big A

Baseball Betting Lines

07/17/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have owned the Seattle Mariners this season and they will try to continue that dominance tonight as the squads resume a four-game set at Angel Stadium.

Following last night's 3-2 result, the Angels are now 9-2 versus Seattle this season, including seven straight victories in the series.

Jered Weaver pitched seven innings of two-run ball, as the Angels held off the Mariners for the 3-2 victory in the second test of a four-game series.

Weaver (9-5), who gave up six hits, snapped a two-start skid. The right-hander fanned five batters and walked zero to improve to 10-3 in 17 career starts versus Seattle.

"Me and Felix (Hernandez) had some good battles," Weaver said. "I am glad we got the win tonight. Our guys put some good at-bats against Felix and scored three runs."

Kevin Frandsen and Bobby Abreu each had an RBI for the Angels, who won 8-3 in the opener of this series on Thursday. Los Angeles remains 4 1/2 games back of Texas for the top spot in the AL West.

Justin Smoak hit a two-run homer for Seattle, which has lost three in a row and 11 of 13 overall. It was Smoak's first homer in a Mariners uniform after he was acquired from Texas as part of the Cliff Lee deal.

Felix Hernandez (7-6) allowed three runs on 10 hits in an eight-inning start. The right-hander also struck out three and walked zero in his first loss since June 8 against the Rangers. It was his fourth complete game in his last six starts.

"I thought Felix pitched great," Seattle manager Don Wakamatsu said. "Early he got hurt with his fastball, but he settled down after the third inning. It's a shame we couldn't get him some more runs."

The Mariners will surely need a lot of run support for tonight, as Ryan Rowland-Smith toes the rubber. The left-hander has just one win in 16 starts and he is 0-5 with a 7.38 ERA in nine road appearances this season. In his last appearance on Sunday, Rowland-Smith lasted only four innings, allowing six runs - four earned - and six hits in an 8-2 loss to the New York Yankees.

Despite boasting a 2.84 ERA, Rowland-Smith is 0-2 in four career starts against the Angels. He last faced them on June 5th, when he gave up just one earned run over five innings. He did not factor in the decision, an 11-2 home loss.

Joe Saunders gets the call for Angels and he will try to continue his mastery of Seattle. In 13 career starts versus the Mariners, Saunders is 8-1 with a 3.58 ERA. He has faced them three times this season, going 1-0 but with just a 5.06 ERA.

The left-hander, though, has had some struggles of late and is just 1-3 with a 5.90 ERA over his previous five overall appearances. He last started on July 7th, when he gave up five earned runs and 10 hits in 5 2/3 innings of a 5-2 loss to the Chicago White Sox.

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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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