Angels try to rebound against Twins

Baseball Betting Lines

07/21/2007 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Now just a game in front in the American League West, the LA Angels of Anaheim try to bounce back tonight as they challenge the Minnesota Twins in the second game of a three-game set at the Metrodome.

The Angels, who are ahead of the surging Seattle Mariners in the division by just a single game entering the weekend, have lost four of the last five outings following a 7-5 setback in the series opener last night.

Justin Morneau homered and drove in three runs and Jason Kubel finished 3- for-3 with a two-run triple for the Twins as they snapped a three-game slide with the triumph. The duo picked up the offensive slack for the club after Michael Cuddyer was placed on the 15-day DL with a sprained right thumb prior to the contest.

Carlos Silva picked up the win for the home team as he allowed four earned runs on 10 hits over 6 2/3 innings, while Joe Nathan logged his 19th save of the campaign as well.

LA starter John Lackey made it through only five innings, permitting seven runs, five earned, on 10 hits, while fanning three. Mike Napoli finished with three hits and Chone Figgins scored twice for the visitors, who again failed to hit a home run for the 13th straight game, the club's longest drought in more than three decades.

Following up an impressive rookie season in 2006 in which he went 11-2 for the Angels, Jered Weaver heads out to the mound for LA tonight in search of his seventh win of the campaign.

Weaver, a product of Long Beach State, has not won in more than a month and failed to earn a decision in his most recent outing on Sunday when he allowed two unearned runs on four hits versus Texas at home. Striking out six and walking two over seven innings, Weaver's Angels bowed in a 5-4 decision.

In his only previous appearance this season versus Minnesota, the right-hander got plenty of run support in a 16-3 drubbing of the Twins at home. In that game Weaver permitted just a single run on five hits over seven innings of action. That victory marked the only decision of his brief two-year career against Minnesota.

As for the Twins, they have Boof Bonser slated to oppose Weaver on the hill. Bonser, a right-hander from Florida, is also in his second year in the majors and has not earned a victory since the second week of June. More recently Bonser threw 6 1/3 innings versus Oakland on Sunday, giving up three runs on five hits and a trio of walks, but he failed to factor into the 4-3 win for his team.

Morneau, who has two home runs and six RBI over the last six games for the Twins, is now second in the AL in both home runs (26) and RBI (81) for a team that is eight games out of contention in the AL Central behind both Detroit and Cleveland.

Despite being second in the American League in hitting this season with a mark of .283 over 95 games, the Angels are second-to-last in home runs with a mere 64, dragging the team's slugging down to .408. Although he does not appear among the league leaders at the moment, Figgins is hitting .317 for the club this season, while Vladimir Guerrero is at .326 with 14 home runs and 78 RBI.

The Angels took two of three from the Twins earlier in the season and are 17-12 in the series since the start of the 2004 campaign.

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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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