Twins aim to continue offensive onslaught in Kansas City

Baseball Betting Lines

07/27/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Minnesota Twins have been scoring runs in bunches during a current three-game winning streak. With the way Carl Pavano has pitched of late, the American League Central contenders may not need such an offensive outburst when they take on the Kansas City Royals tonight at Kauffman Stadium.

The Twins have racked up 36 runs over their three-game surge and reached double digits for the second straight day in last night's 19-1 shellacking of the Royals. The rout came on the heels of a 10-4 victory at Baltimore on Sunday.

Minnesota jumped on Kansas City ace Zack Greinke for six runs in the first inning, capped by a grand slam off the bat of Danny Valencia. Joe Mauer had a three-run homer later in the game as part of a 5-for-5, seven-RBI performance for the reigning AL MVP.

Valencia had a huge night as well, going 4-for-4 with four runs scored in addition to his first career home run.

"What better way to start it off," said Valencia of his slam. "It's nice obviously. Not only to hit a home run, but a grand slam off a guy who's an accomplished big-leaguer and who has won a Cy Young. It was great."

Delmon Young also had four hits, including an RBI double, while Alexi Casilla knocked in three runs to help Minnesota improve to 8-3 since the All-Star break. The surge has moved the Twins within one game of Chicago's lead atop the AL Central.

Minnesota also received excellent pitching from Francisco Liriano (9-7) in Monday's opener of this three-game set, with the talented lefty yielding just three hits and striking out six without a walk over seven shutout innings.

The Twins' pitching staff as a group has lacked consistency this season, but Pavano has emerged as both an ace and a needed workhorse for the rotation. The veteran right-hander, best known for a propensity for injury during the earlier stages of his career, enters tonight's tilt having won seven consecutive decisions and is unbeaten over a nine-start stretch that began on June 9. The Twins have gone 8-1 in those games.

The 34-year-old continued his stellar pitching by firing a five-hit shutout to best Baltimore this past Thursday at Camden Yards. It was Pavano's second straight complete game and the fourth time in his last seven starts he's gone the distance, and the 12-game winner has pitched into the seventh inning in each of his last 12 trips to the mound.

Pavano has registered an outstanding 2.40 earned run average over the course of his nine-start undefeated streak and has won four straight decisions on the road, where he's compiled a 6-3 record and a 3.04 ERA in 10 starts thus far in 2010. One of those victories came at Kauffman Stadium, with the rejuvenated hurler holding the Royals to two runs and four hits through seven sharp innings back on April 23.

This will be Pavano's fourth overall matchup with Kansas City this season, and he's 2-1 with a 5.40 ERA over his first three 2010 outings in the series. He's 6-5 in 12 lifetime games (11 starts) against the Royals, but has a 6.62 ERA over that stretch.

He'll be facing a Kansas City club that's lost four of its past five tests and got a miserable showing out of the usually-reliable Greinke (6-10) in the opener. The 2009 AL Cy Young Award recipient was battered for eight runs on eight hits before exiting after only four innings.

"It was bad. Bad everything," Greinke stated afterward.

The Royals will be hoping for an improved effort from the struggling Bruce Chen this evening. The well-traveled left-hander has surrendered 12 runs in a 15-inning span over his last three starts, taking a loss on two of those occasions and a no-decision in the other.

Chen was last in action Thursday at Yankee Stadium, where he was reached for five runs and nine hits over six frames in a loss to AL East-leading New York. He had a similar pitching line in his first start following the All-Star break, permitting four runs on nine hits through 5 2/3 innings in a July 17 no-decision against Oakland.

The 33-year-old went 4-3 with a solid 3.66 ERA over his first seven starts since joining the Royals' rotation in late May, but has pitched to a 7.20 figure during his three-game winless run.

Chen did notch a victory over the Twins on June 10, despite allowing five runs and 10 hits in 6 1/3 innings. The win was the Panama native's first in three career decisions against Minnesota, and he's recorded an unimpressive 6.08 ERA in 12 appearances (two starts) versus tonight's foe.

The Twins have won seven of 10 versus the Royals this year, as well as 15 of the last 19 overall meetings between the teams. Minnesota is also 17-5 at Kauffman Stadium since the start of the 2008 season.

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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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