A's attempt to narrow gap in West in finale with Rangers

Baseball Betting Lines

07/29/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - After coming through with a much-needed victory on Wednesday, the Oakland Athletics will try to gain further ground on the American League West-leading Texas Rangers when the divisional rivals wrap up a three-game series tonight at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

The Athletics lost 3-1 to Texas in a 10-inning thriller on Tuesday, but were able to avenge that defeat with a dominant performance from Trevor Cahill last night. The All-Star hurler delivered eight shutout innings and Kurt Suzuki knocked in a pair of runs as Oakland evened this key set with a 3-1 triumph.

Cahill (10-4) limited a potent Rangers offense to a mere two hits and walked three in outdueling Texas starter Colby Lewis, who gave up just one run and five hits while registering eight strikeouts over his seven innings of work.

"He was outstanding," A's manager Bob Geren said of Cahill. "When you think about the environment he was pitching in, the weather, the team, it was about as good as you can do."

Lewis held his own as well until the sixth inning, when Suzuki snapped a scoreless tie by hitting his team-leading 12th homer of the year. The Oakland catcher later added an RBI single during a two-run eighth that gave his club a 3-0 advantage.

"[Lewis] left one pitch up to Suzuki, and when you make a mistake to that kid he usually doesn't miss," Rangers manager Ron Washington remarked.

Nelson Cruz, who had the game-winning homer in the 10th inning of Tuesday's opener, had one of Texas' two hits of Cahill to extend his hitting streak to 16 games. The standout outfielder is batting .403 (27-for-67) with three homers and 16 RBI during his career-best tear.

Oakland now has won 10 of its last 13 contests, but still trails the front- running Rangers by 7 1/2 games in the AL West standings. Texas had won four of five prior to Wednesday's setback.

The Rangers will attempt to bounce back behind C.J. Wilson, who's been as good as any pitcher on a Texas staff that also contains former AL Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee over the past few weeks. The converted closer comes in having won six of his last eight decisions and has yielded two runs or less seven times in a nine-start span dating back to June 9, producing an excellent 2.33 earned run average over that stretch.

Wilson has been especially strong since the All-Star break. After permitting just one run and three hits and racking up a career-best 10 strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings to defeat Boston on July 18, the left-hander fired eight shutout innings to lead Texas to a 1-0 victory over rival Anaheim this past Friday in his second start of the second half.

The 29-year-old is also an impressive 7-2 with a 3.18 ERA in 12 outings at hitter-friendly Rangers Ballpark for the year, and allowed one run in a seven- inning no-decision against the A's in Arlington back in May. Wilson had faced Oakland 30 times in relief prior to that start and went 1-3 with a 5.08 ERA and five saves in those games.

The Athletics counter with a pitcher who's on quite a roll of his own in Vin Mazzaro. The young right-hander enters the finale with a 4-0 record and an outstanding 2.12 ERA over his past five assignments and has lasted at least six innings in each of his six most recent starts.

Most notably, most of Mazzaro's success has come on the road, where he's compiled a 4-1 mark along with a 3.13 ERA in seven games (five starts). The second-year major-leaguer has emerged triumphant in three straight away starts, including a July 17 clash at Kansas City in which he surrendered one run in a career-best 7 2/3 innings of work.

Mazzaro followed up by holding AL Central-leading Chicago to two runs and three hits in a sharp six-inning stint on Saturday, which ran his season record to 6-2.

The 23-year-old did not fare well in a meeting with the Rangers on May 4, however, with Mazzaro reached for four runs and issuing four walks before exiting after three innings.

These divisional foes have split eight meetings thus far in 2010, with the Rangers having prevailed in three of the five matchups held in Arlington.

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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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