A's, Tribe play rubber match in Cleveland

Baseball Betting Lines

07/04/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The finale of a three-game set at Progressive Field will take place this afternoon when the Cleveland Indians host the Oakland Athletics.

Taking the hill for the Indians will be Fausto Carmona, who has won three of his last four outings. The last time Carmona was on the bump, the right-hander led the Indians past Toronto, 5-4.

Carmona threw a little over six innings in the victory, surrendering four runs -- three earned -- on six hits and three walks.

It was the third home win on the year in eight starts at Progressive Field for Carmona, who has a mediocre 3.69 earned run average in front of a home crowd this season.

Earlier this season Carmona held the Athletics to just one run on seven hits in 7 1/3 innings of work. In his career against Oakland, Carmona is 3-3, but has a terrible 5.87 earned run average.

The Athletics will turn to Vin Mazzaro, who notched his third victory on the season in his last outing. In the 4-2 victory over Baltimore, the righty tossed six solid innings, allowing just one run on three hits and six walks.

It was the second road win on the season for Mazzaro, who has a 4.43 earned run average in games on the road.

This will be the second-ever start for the New Jersey native against Cleveland. In his only other start against the Tribe, Mazzaro was punished for five runs on 10 hits in just six innings.

On Saturday, Matt LaPorta bounced a base hit back through the middle to chase home the winning run in the 10th, as Cleveland captured a 5-4 win against Oakland.

Travis Hafner lined a double into the right-center gap with one out in the 10th, stayed put on an intentional walk and was then replaced by pinch- runner Anderson Hernandez, who scored on the hit by LaPorta, who ended with three hits and a pair of RBI.

Jayson Nix added a two-run homer for the Indians, whose season-high, five-game winning streak was broken in the opener of this three-game set Friday.

Cliff Pennington went 3-for-4 with a two-run triple and scored twice for Oakland, which had won six of seven coming in. Craig Breslow (3-2) took the loss.

Tony Sipp (1-2) got Adam Rosales to ground out to end the top of the 10th with a runner on third.

Clay Mortensen worked six innings in place of scheduled starter Dallas Braden, fanning seven with two walks while yielding four runs (three earned) on six hits in his 2010 debut. Braden hit the 15-day disabled list Saturday with tightness in his pitching elbow. He has failed to pick up a win since hurling his perfect game way back on May 9th versus the Rays

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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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