A's try to pitch their way to sweep of Indians

Baseball Betting Lines

08/26/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Vin Mazzaro hopes to continue one of the best strings of starting pitching in Oakland Athletics history this evening, when the team goes for a sweep of its three-game series with the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field.

Athletics starters have allowed three runs or less and have gone at least six innings in each of the last 17 games, the longest such streak in Oakland history. It's the longest such streak by the franchise since the 1927 Philadelphia Athletics did it 18 times in a row.

That trend continued on Wednesday, when Trevor Cahill continued his sensational season by turning in yet another quality start in Oakland's 6-1 win. Kevin Kouzmanoff hit a three-run double to punctuate a five-run first inning that helped the A's win for the sixth time in eight games, though they remained 8 1/2 games back of first-place Texas in the American League West. The Rangers beat Minnesota on Wednesday.

Cahill (14-5) went seven innings, allowing seven hits -- which tied a season- high -- and one unearned run with two walks and two strikeouts. In his last six starts, he has a 5-1 record and a 0.77 earned run average.

"He didn't really have the command that he's had lately, but he had real good movement and got a lot of ground balls," A's manager Bob Geren said of Cahill. "Seven innings and one run? That's pretty good."

Asdrubal Cabrera drove in the lone run for the Indians, who have lost five straight. Mitch Talbot (8-11) extended his winless skid to eight starts after allowing six runs, six hits and three walks in six innings.

Mazzaro comes into tonight's matchup winless in his last five starts (0-3) and 6-5 with a 3.56 ERA on the year. He pitched well without getting a decision Friday against Tampa Bay, which reached him for three runs (one earned) and three hits in 6 1/3 frames of a 5-4 A's win.

He beat the Tribe back on July 4 and is 1-1 with a 4.05 ERA in two starts versus them.

Cleveland will counter with righty Justin Masterson, who is 4-12 with a 5.33 ERA on the year. Masterson absorbed another loss Friday in Detroit, as he was hammered for five runs and 11 hits in six innings.

Masterson is 0-2 with a 6.75 ERA in six games (two starts) against the A's. He is 0-3 with a 6.75 ERA in four starts against AL West opponents this year, including an 11-0 rout at the hands of the A's on April 25 in which he gave up seven runs in four innings.

The A's are 6-2 against Cleveland this season and have won 11 of the past 15 matchups between the two teams.

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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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