Rayburn's homers and Porcello's pitching help Tigers pound Jays
Baseball Betting Lines
08/29/2010 - Toronto, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Rick Porcello spun seven solid innings and Ryan Raburn belted two home runs, finishing with four RBI, as the Detroit Tigers pounded Toronto, 10-4, to salvage a split of a four-game series at Rogers Centre.
Porcello (7-11) allowed only three baserunners on two hits and an error. His lone mistake came in the sixth, when Blue Jays shortstop John McDonald homered with two outs.
Detroit rookie Casper Wells supplied three RBI and Brandon Inge added a two- run homer for the Tigers, who have won seven of their last 10 games.
Toronto starting pitcher Marc Rzepczynski (1-3) gave up four runs -- three earned -- on five hits in 5 2/3 innings. Rzepczynski, who was celebrating his 25th birthday on Sunday, struck out a season-high eight batters but walked five to match his career high.
Miguel Cabrera doubled to drive in Will Rhymes and give Detroit a 1-0 lead in the first. The double gave Cabrera 300 total bases this season. He became just the fourth player in club history to eclipse 300 total bases in three straight years, joining Hank Greenberg, Charlie Gehringer and Harry Heilmann.
Wells extended the lead in the second when his two-out single plated Jhonny Peralta, who drew a one-out walk and advanced on a fielding error by Toronto second baseman Aaron Hill.
The Tigers loaded the bases in the sixth and Wells ripped a double to center field to make it a 4-0 game.
Detroit then blew the game open against the Toronto bullpen by scoring three runs in both the seventh and eighth innings.
Raburn went deep off Jesse Carlson to open the seventh and Inge cleared the fence later in the frame.
Brian Tallet replaced Carlson in the next inning and yielded back-to-back singles to Austin Jackson and Rhymes before Raburn crushed a 1-1 offering over the left-field wall.
Adam Lind blasted a three-run homer off Detroit reliever Jose Valverde in the ninth.
Game Notes
Cabrera, who extended his hitting streak to 12 games, leads the majors with 107 RBI...Cabrera has hit safely in 16 of his last 17 games against Toronto...Raburn has hit in 10 consecutive games...The Tigers have recorded at least one home run in 11 straight road games...The Blue Jays lead the majors with 197 home runs...Detroit and Toronto split the eight-game season series.
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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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