Roberts, Orioles top Yanks to start series in Bronx

Baseball Betting Lines

09/06/2010 - Bronx, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Brian Roberts' seventh inning single drove in the winning run as Baltimore downed New York, 4-3, in the opener of a three-game set.

Roberts finished 3-for-5 with two RBI while Matt Wieters knocked in a run and walked twice for the Orioles, who won their third straight in manager Buck Showalter's return to the Bronx.

Brian Matusz (8-12) picked up the win after allowing three runs on five hits with a pair of walks and four strikeouts over six innings, and Koji Uehara sewed up the victory by retiring the side in order in the ninth to earn his seventh save for the Birds, who have won three straight against the top two teams in the division.

A.J. Burnett (10-13) was tagged with the loss after yielding all four runs on seven hits and four walks while fanning five over seven innings for New York, which saw its lead trimmed to two games in the AL East over Tampa Bay, which plays later this evening at Boston.

Alex Rodriguez hit a solo home run in defeat for New York, his first since coming off the disabled list Sunday and the 605th of his career.

After the Yankees had scored twice in the home sixth to tie the game at three, the visitors produced the decisive run in the next half inning.

Corey Patterson led off with a single, moved to second base on a Cesar Izturis sacrifice bunt and scored on Roberts' single to right.

Josh Bell doubled to open the third, advanced on a Roberts single and scored the game's first run when Felix Pie grounded into a 3-6-3 double play.

Rodriguez's long ball to left with two outs in the fourth tied the game.

The visitors regained the lead in the fifth when Izturis doubled with one out and scored on a two-out single by Roberts, who was thrown out at second base to end the inning.

Pie singled to start the six and then advanced to third after a Nick Markakis walk and a wild pitch before coming into score on a Wieters sacrifice fly to make it a 3-1 game.

Nick Swisher opened the home half of the inning with a walk that was followed by a Mark Teixeira single. The runners advanced on a wild pitch, and Swisher came home on a Rodriguez sacrifice fly before Robinson Cano's single fell in between the shortstop Izturis and left fielder Pie to chase home Teixeira.

Game Notes

Sunday marked the 15th anniversary of former Baltimore shortstop/third baseman Cal Ripken, Jr. breaking Lou Gehrig's historic consecutive games played mark. On September 6 the following year, Eddie Murray belted the 500th home run of his Hall of Fame career in his return to Baltimore off Detroit's Felipe Lira. Matusz improved to 2-3 in five career turns against New York with both of his wins coming at Yankee Stadium...Roberts has hit safely in six straight games. Weiters had a seven-game hit streak snapped, while Markakis went 1-for-3 and has hit safely in 14 of his last 15 games...The Yankees lead the season series, 10-3, including a 6-1 record at home...Burnett has allowed the first run of the game in 18 of his 28 starts. He is 2-2 against the Birds this year and 11-4 in 17 career starts...New York's Brett Gardner had a streak of drawing a walk in 10 straight games snapped...The Yankees concluded a stretch of five straight home day games which they had played since April 8-14, 2004 against the White Sox and Tampa Bay.

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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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