Rays welcome Red Sox to the Trop
Baseball Betting Lines
08/27/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - A terrific pitching matchup is on tap this evening when David Price and the Tampa Bay Rays welcome Jon Lester and the Boston Red Sox to town for the start of an important three-game series at Tropicana Field.
Tampa comes into tonight's tilt tied atop the American League East standings with the New York Yankees, while the Red Sox sit 5 1/2 games back of both teams, despite a plethora of injuries.
"We have to go to [St. Petersburg] and at least win the series," third baseman Adrian Beltre told the team's website. "I think we're trying to go in there looking for a sweep, so we can get a better chance to cut it down. They're playing really good baseball -- Tampa Bay and the Yankees -- so we have to try and do our stuff and win games, because it's been tough. They're not budging."
Tonight's tilt is the first of six meetings between these teams between now and the end of the regular season.
The Rays, who will be beginning a stretch of 18 straight games within the division, have been incredible at home of late, winning 19 of their past 24 games at the Trop since the beginning of July -- the best home record in the majors over that time.
A big reason for that has been Price, who is 7-1 with a 2.11 earned run average in his 11 starts in St. Petersburg. Tonight, he will be taking a third crack at win No. 16 after receiving no-decisions his last two times out. The former first overall pick, who is 15-5 with a 2.97 earned run average, did not factor into the decision of his team's 5-4 win on Saturday, and surrendered four runs and six hits in six innings.
The left-hander, who turned 25 on Thursday, beat the Red Sox the last time he faced them and is 2-1 with a 3.79 ERA in three career starts against Boston.
Lester, meanwhile, will be trying to bounce back from one of the worst outings of his career. Last Friday the Toronto Blue Jays battered him for nine runs and eight hits in just two innings. The loss stopped a two-start winning streak for Lester and dropped him to 13-8 with a 3.26 ERA.
The southpaw tossed six scoreless innings to beat Tampa back on May 25 and is 7-3 in 14 starts against them with a 4.18 ERA.
Lester had been slated to start the nightcap of Boston's day/night doubleheader with the Seattle Mariners, but after the Red Sox claimed a 5-3 win in the opener he was pushed back to this series to skip the ailing Daisuke Matsuzaka.
However, even if Lester had been on the hill for the second game it may not have mattered, as the Boston bats were silenced by Felix Hernandez in a 4-2 loss.
On short notice, Tim Wakefield (3-10) took the loss after giving up four runs -- three earned -- on eight hits in 5 2/3 innings, while J.D. Drew homered for the Red Sox, who had a four-game win streak stopped.
Tampa will also be looking to bounce back from a loss after ending its seven- game West Coast road trip on a sour note, as it was crushed by the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 12-3 in the finale of a three-game set at Angel Stadium.
John Jaso finished 3-for-5 with a homer and drove in all three runs for the Rays, who had won nine of their last 11 before the rout and ended the trek 4-3.
Jeff Niemann (10-4), who was activated from the 15-day disabled list prior to the contest, was torched in defeat for a career-high 10 runs -- all earned -- and eight hits over 3 1/3 frames.
"Jeff had a very difficult day. He just had a bad time throwing his fastball where he wanted to," said Rays manager Joe Maddon of Niemann. "It's all about command. When he gets that back, he's going to be fine."
The Rays have won eight of their 12 meetings with the Red Sox this season.
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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting
NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.
That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.
A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."
It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.
The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.
So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."
Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.
Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.
Seriously.
The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.
The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.
Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."
The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.
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