05/12/2008 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The National League's hottest team during the month of May invades San Francisco's AT&T Park for the opener of a four-game series, as the Houston Astros attempt to keep up their torrid stretch in tonight's matchup with the Giants.
Houston has gone 8-1 so far in May and began its current 10-game road trip in excellent fashion, taking all three meetings with the Los Angeles Dodgers over the weekend. The Astros completed the sweep with Sunday's 8-5 victory that was fueled by a six-run eruption in the eighth inning.
Trailing 3-1 heading into the game-changing frame, the Astros strung together five consecutive singles off Dodgers reliever Jonathan Broxton to move ahead by a run. Brad Ausmus later delivered a two-RBI single that gave Houston a 6-3 advantage.
Hunter Pence finished 3-for-4 with two RBI for the Astros and Miguel Tejada collected a pair of hits along with two runs scored.
Geoff Geary (1-1) earned the win with a scoreless inning in relief of Shawn Chacon, who held the Dodgers to two runs on seven hits over six frames. Jose Valverde only had to record one out for his eighth save.
The Giants also had a successful weekend, with the club winning its final two tests of a three-game home series with Philadelphia. In Sunday's rubber match, Steve Holm's first major league home run lifted San Francisco to a 4-3 comeback victory.
Holm followed a Randy Winn single with a two-run blast off J.C. Romero in the bottom of the seventh inning to erase a 3-2 deficit for the Giants, who had lost five straight games prior to Saturday's 8-2 decision over the Phillies.
Jack Taschner (2-0) picked up the win after holding Philadelphia scoreless in the top of the seventh, while Brian Wilson preserved the lead in the ninth to notch his 11th save. The San Francisco bullpen combined to toss 4 2/3 shutout frames after starter Jonathan Sanchez was removed in the fifth.
Barry Zito takes aim at an elusive first victory of the season when he takes the mound for the Giants in tonight's opener. The disappointing left-hander fell to 0-7 this past Wednesday in Pittsburgh, although Zito did pitch reasonably well in his team's 3-1 setback.
The former American League Cy Young winner worked five innings against the Pirates and yielded just two runs on five hits. Zito was making his first start since April 27, having been briefly removed from the rotation due to his struggles.
The quirky veteran won his only career start against Houston with seven innings of one-run ball at AT&T Park on May 23 of last season.
Zito will be opposed tonight by Astros ace Roy Oswalt, who appears to have rebounded from a slow start of his own.
Oswalt lost his first three starts of 2008 and pitched to a 9.00 earned run average over those games. Since then, the hard-throwing righty has gone 3-0 with a 3.55 ERA during a stretch of five outings.
The three-time All-Star struck out a season-best nine batters against Washington on Wednesday, although he wound up with a no decision after surrendering three runs over seven innings.
Oswalt is just 2-5 with a 4.07 ERA in 10 career starts against San Francisco and has not fared well pitching at AT&T Park, where the 30-year-old has compiled a 1-5 record and a 5.30 ERA in seven mound trips.
The Giants won four of their six encounters with Houston last season and have gone 9-3 against the Astros since 2006. San Francisco has taken five of the six matchups held at AT&T Park during that two-year stretch.
<< Red Wings' Franzen out for Game 3
Dallas, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Detroit Red Wings forward Johan Franzen is still
experiencing concussion-like symptoms and will not be available to play in
Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals against the Dallas Stars on Monday.
Franzen
<< Uggla leads Marlins to sweep of Nationals
Dan Uggla and the Florida Marlins will sure be sorry to have to leave Washington. Who can blame them? They've been there twice this season and haven't lost yet.Uggla hit two homers Sunday to help the Marlins complete another three-game sweep of the
<< Red Sox activate Cora
Minneapolis, MN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Red Sox activated infielder Alex Cora
off the 15-day disabled list prior to Sunday's 9-8 loss to the Twins.
Cora, who had been out since April 9 with a sore right elbow, had three hits
and started
<< Twins hold on to beat Red Sox in homer-filled game
Minneapolis, MN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Craig Monroe clubbed a pair of homers and
drove in four runs, and Minnesota held on for a 9-8 victory over the Boston
Red Sox, in the third installment of a four-game series.
Justin Morneau had three
Hernandez tries to continue hot start in finale with Red Sox >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - With the opportunity to achieve a series win over the
defending world champions, the Minnesota Twins will send out their newfound
ace in tonight's finale of a four-game set with the visiting Boston Red Sox.
Livan Hernandez
Red Wings aim for 3-0 lead as West finals head to Dallas >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The top-seeded Detroit Red Wings will try to take a
commanding 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference finals tonight,
when they visit the Dallas Stars for Game 3 at American Airlines Center.
Detroit has grabbed a
Red-hot Marlins take streak into Cincinnati >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The surging Florida Marlins will try to extend their
season-high winning streak to eight games tonight, when they open a four-game
series against the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park.
The NL East-leadin
Cubs try to keep momentum going as Padres pay visit >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Chicago Cubs enter a four-game set with a chip on their
shoulders, as they are coming off an impressive sweep of the Arizona
Diamondbacks. Tonight, the club will welcome the San Diego Padres to town for
the ser
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. “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).
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.
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.
Sports Betting News: NFL Team History | Football Betting | Baseball Betting | Basketball Betting | Hockey Betting | Golf Betting | Tennis Betting | Auto Racing Betting | Horse Racing Betting | Soccer Betting