Surging Tigers try to extend lead over slumping Twins

Baseball Betting Lines

07/10/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Detroit Tigers continue to lead the American League Central Division and will attempt to increase their advantage over the Minnesota Twins this afternoon at Comerica Park.

Nick Blackburn will be on the bump for Minnesota today with hopes of improving his 7-6 overall record and 6.00 ERA. Blackburn has allowed 127 hits in 93 innings, and has only struck out 33 batters. Against Tampa Bay on Sunday, he permitted four earned runs on nine hits in 6 1/3 innings en route to defeat.

The Minnesota righty is 2-0 with a 3.94 ERA this season against Detroit, however, an obvious reason for confidence heading into today's tilt. Blackburn is 4-3 lifetime versus the Tigers.

Detroit will hand the ball to Jeremy Bonderman. Having yet to go the distance through 16 starts, Bonderman is 4-6 with a 4.81 ERA. He has struggled mightily in his last three outings, yielding 15 runs on 25 hits in 16 1/3 innings. On Monday, the righty only lasted five innings against Seattle and gave up seven earned runs.

Bonderman is 1-0 this season against Minnesota, but he is just 4-6 with a 5.40 ERA lifetime versus the Twins.

On Friday, Magglio Ordonez had three hits and drove in three runs in Detroit's 7-3 victory in the opener of this crucial three-game intradivision set.

Carlos Guillen had two hits and drove in two runs, while Miguel Cabrera singled to extend his hitting streak to a career-best 17 games for Detroit, which maintained its hold on the top spot in the AL Central. The Tigers lead second-place Chicago by a half-game, with the Twins now three off the pace in third.

Justin Verlander (11-5) made it through 5 1/3 innings to grab the win after being charged with a pair of runs on eight hits. The righty walked two and struck out seven for the Tigers, who have won four straight and six of seven.

Minnesota starter Francisco Liriano (6-7) was banged up to the tune of seven runs allowed on six hits, and walked two and hit a pair of batters over just 1 2/3 innings. It was his shortest effort of the year, and the Twins fell for a third consecutive game and for a fifth time in six tries.

"We came out and got some runs off a real good pitcher, it's not easy to do off [Liriano] -- he's really good," said Tigers' skipper Jim Leyland. "Verlander was sluggish and we had to use more pitchers than I would have liked to use in a game where we got that many runs to start. We didn't add on when we had a couple chances to do so."

Twins' first baseman Justin Morneau was not available for Friday's game, as he continues to suffer from concussion-like symptoms after getting accidentally kneed in the head by Toronto's John McDonald on Wednesday. Manager Ron Gardenhire said if Morneau does not play over the weekend, it is likely that he would not travel to Anaheim for the All-Star Game on Tuesday.

Minnesota has won six of its 10 matchups with the Tigers this season despite Friday's defeat.

Gamingfrenzi Baseball Betting News

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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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It's less than a month until the NHL hockey betting season opens at MySportsbook.com and preparations are underway for another battle in the race to hoist Lord Stanley's mug in 2007.

As cup crazy fans prepare to place their bets, one online sportsbook ,MySportsbook.com, is offering hockey betting lines on the 2007/2007 Stanley Cup , who will bring it home this upcoming season.

Despite a poor showing in last season's playoffs and the loss of Steve Yzerman to retirement, the Detroit Red Wings are early favourites at this online sportsbook with wagering odds of 6-1. The Wings will look to offensive powerhouse Pavel Datsyuk and newly appointed captain Nicklas Lidstrom to lead one of the league's most prominent franchises.

Always a threat are the Ottawa Senators, with newly acquired goaltender Martin Gerber from the Stanley Cup champion ,Carolina Hurricanes. The Sens are second best in the rankings at a 7-1 bet, and odds makers at this sportsbook are optimistic that the Ottawa squad will fare better than last season's Eastern Conference semi-final upset to the Buffalo Sabres.

Also worth noting are the defending Stanley Cup champs Carolina Hurricanes, a 10-1 bet to repeat. Behind the Canes are the New Jersey Devils, Calgary Flames, Buffalo Sabres, Philadelphia Flyers, and Anaheim Mighty Ducks all sit at 12-1. In the basement are the Washington Capitals, Chicago Blackhawks, and St. Louis Blues who all have 100-1 odds to win.

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