White Sox take win streak to Kansas City
Baseball Betting Lines
07/02/2009 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Chicago White Sox will be putting a season-high win streak on the line when the resurgent club heads to Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium tonight for the opener of a four-game series with the Royals.
Chicago comes in having won five straight games and 12 of its last 16 contests to creep back into the American League Central race, where the defending division champions now trail first-place Detroit by only three games. The White Sox have also been quite successful on the road as of late, with victories in 11 of their last 14 tilts as the visitor.
That tear began with a three-game sweep of the Royals from May 27-29 in Chicago's most recent visit to Kauffman Stadium.
The White Sox also posted a road sweep earlier this week, taking all three matchups with the wayward Cleveland Indians that culminated with Wednesday's 6-2 win at Progressive Field. Chicago scored four times in the sixth inning, highlighted by a three-run homer off the bat of Ramon Castro, to back eight strong frames out of starting pitcher Jose Contreras.
Contreras (3-7) allowed only two runs on five hits and one walk to continue his in-season turnaround. Since returning from a stint in the minors on June 8, the veteran hurler has gone 3-2 with a 2.17 earned run average in five starts.
"He was real good tonight," said Indians manager Eric Wedge of Contreras.
Alexei Ramirez finished 3-for-4 with an RBI single for Chicago, while Jim Thome, Paul Konerko and Gordon Beckham each had a pair of hits on the night. Ramirez did leave the game in the eighth inning due to an injury to his right middle finger, however, and is expected to sit out this evening.
The White Sox will send out their top winner in an attempt to extend their impressive streak, with Mark Buehrle slated to pitch tonight's opener. The quick-working lefty is 7-2 with a very solid 3.26 ERA so far this season, although he's recorded only one victory over his past seven starts.
Buehrle has hit a bit of a rough patch as of late, however, as he's surrendered five or more runs in four of his last five outings. In his most recent start, the steady veteran gave up five runs (3 earned) and lasted just 5 2/3 innings during a no-decision against the crosstown-rival Cubs.
The three-time All-Star will try to get back on track when he faces a Kansas City squad he's had plenty of previous success against. Buehrle is 19-8 with a 3.48 ERA over 40 lifetime matchups (38 starts) with the Royals, including a 9-6 mark in 19 Kauffman Stadium starts.
Buehrle got a no-decision in Kansas City back on May 30, a game in which he permitted three runs over 7 1/3 innings.
Bruce Chen gets the call for the Royals this evening and will go in search for his first win in the majors in nearly four years. The journeyman left-hander was called up from Triple-A Omaha last week to replace the struggling Kyle Davies in the team's rotation.
Chen made his Kansas City debut this past Saturday in Pittsburgh and was reached for four runs on seven hits over 6 1/3 innings of a 6-2 Royals loss.
The 32-year-old Panamanian, who is pitching for his 10th team in a sporadic 11-year career, has lost eight consecutive decisions since his last big-league win, which came on October 2, 2005 while with Baltimore.
Chen has faced the White Sox six times previously, twice in a starting role, and is 0-1 with a 5.66 ERA against Chicago.
The slumping Royals lost for the 10th time in 14 games with Wednesday's 5-1 setback at home to fellow AL Central member Minnesota. Kansas City fell despite compiling 12 hits on the afternoon, the team's most while scoring under two runs since August 29, 1996.
Billy Butler finished 4-for-4 with a pair of doubles in a losing cause, while Jose Guillen knocked in the Royals' only run with an RBI single in the sixth inning.
Kansas City starter Gil Meche (4-8) yielded three runs -- two earned -- and struck out five over a solid six innings, but still suffered his third consecutive losing start.
These AL Central foes have split eight meetings so far in 2009, with the White Sox having won three of the five matchups held in Kansas City.
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The second
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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