A-Rod moves one step closer to 600; Yankees down Royals

Baseball Betting Lines

07/22/2010 - Bronx, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Alex Rodriguez hit home run No. 599 and drove in four runs total, and the Yankees defeated the Royals, 10-4, in the start to a four-game series at Yankee Stadium.

Rodriguez hit his 16th homer of the season and second in four games for the Yankees, who have won 12 of 15 overall. Derek Jeter added his second career inside-the-park home run, while Nick Swisher hit a two-run double in the win.

CC Sabathia (13-3) won for the ninth time in 10 starts after laboring through 6 1/3 frames, giving up four runs (three earned) on 11 hits and four walks while fanning nine.

Willie Bloomquist registered three hits, while Wilson Betemit and Scott Podsednik each had two hits and an RBI for the Royals, who have lost eight of 10. Mike Aviles had two hits and scored a run, and Billy Butler recorded two hits in defeat.

Bruce Chen (5-4) yielded five runs on nine hits and two walks in six frames to take the loss.

After a questionable call cost the Royals a run in the top of the fifth, the Yankees went ahead for good in the home half.

Robinson Cano singled with one away and raced all the way around to score on Jorge Posada's double. Posada scampered to third on a wild pitch to Marcus Thames, who then lofted a sacrifice fly to left for a 5-3 advantage.

A wacky play allowed the Royals to creep to within one in the sixth. With a runner on third and one out, Yuniesky Betancourt swung over a pitch in the dirt. Because of the dropped third strike, Betancourt took off for first. Posada inexplicably fired it toward third in an attempt to retire that runner, but his throw sailed into left field, allowing a run to score and Betancourt to advance to second.

Rodriguez, though, restored the Yankees' two-run lead with a one-out blast to right off Robinson Tejeda in the seventh inning.

The Royals loaded the bases with two outs in the eighth off Joba Chamberlain, but Jose Guillen grounded into a fielder's choice to end the inning.

Swisher gave New York some insurance in the home half with a two-run double, which was followed by Mark Teixeira's RBI single for a 9-4 lead. The base hit gave Rodriguez an opportunity to hit his 600th career home run, but he settled for an RBI double that increased the Yanks' lead to six.

A one-out single by Jason Kendall and a two-out base hit by Butler in the opening inning put runners on the corners for Guillen, whose double to left plated a run.

Betemit followed with a single to left, scoring Butler easily. Betemit attempted to stretch the play into a double, but was thrown out at second just ahead of Guillen scoring. Guillen, who was not running particularly hard, had his potential run wiped off the scoreboard.

The Yankees came right back to tie the game on Rodriguez's two-run ground-rule double, but the Royals re-took the lead in the second on Podsednik's run- scoring single.

Jeter opened up the home third with his inside-the-park shot, which was nearly caught by Royals outfielder David DeJesus. DeJesus had the ball in his glove until his wrist slammed into the wall at nearly a 90-degree angle, causing him to drop the ball and crumple down in pain. He left the game after Jeter circled the bases easily, tying the score at three.

The Royals appeared to take the lead in the fifth on a Betemit single, where Butler tried to score from second. Posada appeared to miss tagging Butler at the plate by a wide margin, but home plate umpire Eric Cooper called Butler out to end the inning and keep the game tied.

Game Notes

DeJesus sprained his thumb and will miss the remainder of the series. X-rays were negative...Jeter's other inside-the-park homer came against the Royals on August 2, 1996 -- his rookie season. He is the oldest Yankee (36 years, 26 days) to accomplish the feat since Earle Combs (36 years, 45 days) did it on June 29, 1935...Rodriguez's 499th career home run also came against Kansas City...Teixeira, who had three hits, an RBI and scored twice, reached base for the 38th straight game...The Yankees are 25-24 when allowing the first run of the game...New York added a blank armband to its uniform for the late Ralph Houk...The Yankees honored late owner George Steinbrenner by placing a large mural in the outfield.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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