Mets use run in ninth to edge Diamondbacks
Baseball Betting Lines
07/31/2010 - Flushing, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jesus Feliciano tripled to deep right-center to open the ninth inning and scored the game-winning run on Carlos Beltran's sacrifice fly, as the Mets beat the Diamondbacks, 5-4.
David Wright went 2-for-4 with three RBI, while Angel Pagan had three hits and scored twice for New York, which lost of the opener of this three-game set on Friday, 9-6.
Francisco Rodriguez (4-2) threw a scoreless top of the ninth to get the win, the Mets' first in five games against Arizona this season.
Juan Gutierrez (0-6) was on the hill in the bottom half to take the loss, the club's eighth in nine game. Justin Upton knocked in three runs in defeat.
New York's Bobby Parnell started on the hill with a 2-1 lead in the seventh and loaded the bases on a pinch-hit double, single and walk. Upton, who in the third inning hit a sacrifice fly with the bases full, laced a double down the right-field line that plated Tony Abreu and Chris Young for a 3-2 Arizona edge.
Kelly Johnson then beat Ike Davis's throw home on Adam LaRoche's dribbler off Pedro Feliciano, who managed to keep it a two-run game from there.
Wright's two-run double off D.J. Carrasco in roughly the same spot as Upton's tied the game in the bottom half, and Beltran's fly to right in the ninth was plenty deep to plate Feliciano without a play at the plate to earn the win.
Mets starter Hisanori Takahashi lasted six innings and allowed just one run on seven hits and two walks while striking out 10. His counterpart, Barry Enright, also had a quality start, throwing six frames and yielding two runs on four hits and three walks.
Wright followed Upton's sac fly with a two-out, run-scoring single in the bottom of the third to tie the game.
Jose Reyes gave the Mets the lead in the fifth with an RBI hit to right.
Game Notes
Young, Johnson and Miguel Montero each had two hits for Arizona, which went 3- for-11 with runners in scoring position...In the series finale on Sunday, newly-acquired Dan Hudson will make his Arizona debut against Jon Niese...The D'Backs also made two trades on Saturday, acquiring outfielder Ryan Church, infielder Bobby Crosby and Carrasco from the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for catcher Chris Snyder, infielder Pedro Ciriaco and cash considerations, while also sending reliever Chad Qualls to the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for a player to be named later.
Cleveland, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Cleveland Browns have signed cornerback Joe Haden, the seventh overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft, to a multi-year contract. No terms of the contract were released, but according to a report earli
<< Gonzo's HR in ninth lifts Rockies over Cubs
Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Carlos Gonzalez lead-off home run in the ninth
inning gave the Colorado Rockies a 6-5 win over the Chicago Cubs in the second
of a three-game set.
Gonzalez led off the bottom of the inning against Sean Ma
<< Zimmerman's homer lifts Nationals over Phillies
Washington, DC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ryan Zimmerman's three-run home run in the
bottom of the ninth led the Washington Nationals to a 7-5 win over the
Philadelphia Phillies in the second of a three-game set.
After the Phillies took
<< Busch dominant in Nationwide win at Iowa
Newton, IA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kyle Busch put on a dominating performance to
easily win Saturday's U.S. Cellular 250 Nationwide Series race at Iowa
Speedway.
Busch led 208 of 250 laps, but fell back to seventh for a late-race restart
after t
<< Cano lifts Yanks over Rays; A-Rod still stuck on 599
St. Petersburg, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Just after Alex Rodriguez failed to club
career homer No. 600, Robinson Cano belted a solo shot to right field with one
out in the ninth inning, providing the New York Yankees with a 5-4 win over
the Ray
St. Louis, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jeff Suppan finally got his coveted first win of the season, pitching 5 1/3 shutout innings to lead the Cardinals to an 11-1 win over the Pirates. Suppan (1-6) earned his first victory since September 19,
Bunbury leads Wizards past TFC >>
Kansas City, KS (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Teal Bunbury's header in the 62nd minute
was enough for the Kansas City Wizards to claim a 1-0 win over Toronto FC at
CommunityAmerica Ballpark on Saturday.
Neither side created a ton of chances ove
Gonzo's cycle, HR in ninth lifts Rockies over Cubs >>
Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Carlos Gonzalez's lead-off home run in the
ninth inning gave him the cycle and the Colorado Rockies a 6-5 win over the
Chicago Cubs in the second of a three-game set.
Gonzalez led off the bottom of
Ten-man Houston ties N.Y. to spoil Henry's debut >>
Houston, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Brian Mullan scored in the 90th minute as 10-
man Houston tied Red Bull New York on Saturday, 2-2, to spoil Thierry Henry's
two-assist debut in Major League Soccer.
Henry assisted on two goals for Juan Pablo
RSL thumps United >>
Sandy, UT (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Second-half goals from Robbie Findley and Nelson
Gonzalez propelled Real Salt Lake to a 3-0 win over D.C. United at Rio Tinto
Stadium on Saturday.
Alvaro Saborio put Salt Lake in front after 13 minutes, while
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.
To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.