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05/25/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Year after year, the Oakland Athletics have churned out solid young pitchers from their farm system in assembly-line fashion.
This year has been no different, as Oakland's pitching staff ranks third in the American League with a combined 3.92 ERA. The starting rotation boasts an average age of 26.7 years, which is the youngest in the majors. Dallas Braden, owner of a perfect game already this season, is the second-oldest pitcher in the rotation, at just 26.
"You look in the winter at all the top-notch pitching free agents and see how few real top-notch guys are available." manager Bob Geren said in a recent interview with the team's Web site. "To be able to grow your own and see them blossom into that style of pitching is a credit to numerous people."
That development begins at the lower levels of Oakland's minor league system, where the coaches emphasize preparing the pitching prospects with the tools, and mindset, needed to make it to The Show. Once there, A's pitching coach Curt Young takes the reins and further fine-tunes those skills, closely monitoring each pitcher's progression.
Young is in his seventh season as Oakland's pitching coach. Over the past six seasons under his tutelage, the A's pitching staff has allowed the fewest home runs in the American League (909), has the lowest opponent batting average (.259) and ranks second in ERA (4.10).
Prized free agent acquisition Ben Sheets (31) saw his Oakland tenure get off to a rocky start, and things came to a head during a two-game stretch a few weeks ago when he allowed a combined 17 runs.
On Sunday, Sheets baffled the Bay Area-rival San Francisco Giants by allowing just two hits in six innings, striking out eight along the way. It marked the second straight shutout of the Giants, after 24-year-old Gio Gonzalez tossed eight scoreless innings in Saturday's 1-0 victory.
All told, A's pitchers held the Giants to just one run in sweeping the three- game series over the weekend. San Francisco was held scoreless for the final 20 innings of the series.
Since giving up those 17 runs, Sheets has allowed a total of seven runs over his last four starts, to which he credits an adjustment with his arm angle. Manager Bob Geren also pointed to Sheets developing his cut fastball and relying on his changeup more frequently. While the numbers certainly suggest the veteran right-hander has turned a corner, Sheets said he is only now starting to feel more at ease on the mound, which is evident by his increased velocity.
"I'm just feeling a lot better from start to start," he told the Oakland Tribune. "When I look back at month to month to month, I can really tell a big difference. The more you do something, the more comfortable you feel at it. It feels good, because I think I'm starting to settle in."
Thanks to Sheets and the rest of the pitching staff, the A's have won three straight to move above .500 (23-22), as they trail the division-leading Texas Rangers by just two games. Now, the A's pitchers look to keep dealing as the team embarks on a 10-game road trip through Baltimore, Detroit and Boston.
RANGERS SHUFFLE STARTING ROTATION
Rangers' manager Ron Washington has been searching for another lefty bullpen option to go along with Darren Oliver. It appears the search has ultimately landed on starter Matt Harrison, who learned he will join the bullpen upon his return from the disabled list.
Harrison, who has not made a relief appearance since 2006, began a rehab assignment in Double-A on Monday. Barring any setbacks, he could join the team in his new role as early as Friday in Minnesota. In six starts for the Rangers this season, Harrison went 1-1 with a 5.29 ERA before being shutdown with left biceps tendinitis.
"I really don't know what to expect," he told the Star-Telegram. "I talked to (Dustin) Nippert. He said it's different because every time the phone rings down there, your adrenalin gets going. It's something I'm going to have to experience firsthand, and hopefully the minor league games will help."
In other pitching news, Washington announced over the weekend that he had switched C.J. Wilson and Derek Holland in the rotation. Wilson will now pitch Saturday against the Twins, while Holland will pitch Sunday, giving him seven days off between starts. The team has two open dates this week, which opened the possibility for such a move.
After winning the first five games of their seven-game homestand, the Rangers lost consecutive games this weekend against the Chicago Cubs by identical 5-4 finals. Thus far the road has not been very kind to the Rangers, who are 18-9 at home but just 7-11 elsewhere.
PROBLEMS AT THE TOP FOR SEATTLE
The box scores show that Seattle managed just two runs over the final 22 innings of this weekend's series with the San Diego Padres. And with that, the Mariners are now just 5-16 in May and have not won a series all month long.
Chone Figgins was acquired in the offseason with the hope that he'd team up with leadoff man Ichiro Suzuki to give Seattle a formidable 1-2 punch at the top of the lineup. However, that plan hasn't quite worked out, which is just one of the many reasons Seattle (16-28) now has the second-worst record in the American League.
According to the team's Web site, Suzuki and Figgins have both reached base only 17 percent of the innings which they've batted consecutively. Of course, it's tough to fault Suzuki, who is hitting .348 and has 22 multi-hit games. Figgins, a former leadoff man with the Angels, is hitting just .195 with a team-high 42 strikeouts in the No. 2 hole.
Although Figgins doesn't blame his struggles on his new home in the lineup, one can't help but correlate the two. After all, he is a career .291 hitter and is coming off an All-Star nod last season -- which is why the team gave him $36 million over four years. Still, despite the team's well-documented offensive struggles, Figgins isn't putting any added pressure on himself. What's more, he evens claims he's been swinging the bat better lately.
"My mind-set never changes no matter where I am (in the order)," Figgins told the Seattle Times. "I think times like this show you what you're made of. I'm not the kind of guy that's going to give in. I'll never give in. I'm going to go out and keep playing.
"That's who I am. I've always been like that. Stuff never comes easy. If you can realize that and battle through the hard times you can get rewarded."
ANGELS MISSING SOME FORMER STARS
The early polls are in for the 2010 All-Star ballots, and so far the results should be of particular interest to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Among the leading vote-getters at their respective positions are the Rangers' Vladimir Guerrero and the Yankees' Mark Teixeira, two key figures of the Angels' not-so-distant past.
Teixeira, who hit .358 and had a .632 slugging percentage in 54 games with the Angels in 2008, is the leading vote-getter at first base thus far, nearly 138,000 votes ahead of Minnesota's Justin Morneau.
Guerrero, an eight-time All-Star with the Halos, has rebounded from his knee problems to hit .339 with 10 homers and 37 RBI in his first year as the Rangers' designated hitter. He leads the voting at DH with 374,333 tallies. Ironically, the Angels' new DH, Hideki Matsui, ranks second with 298,487 votes.
However, Matsui's votes can be credited more so to his reputation than to his production thus far. He was hitting just .161 in the Month of May entering Monday's series opener against the Toronto Blue Jays. With Toronto left-hander Brett Cecil on the hill for that game, Angels' manager Mike Scioscia dropped Matsui to seventh in the lineup. That change, it appears, will remain in place until Matsui picks things up at the plate.
"Against lefties right now, we want to keep Juan (Rivera) behind Kendry (Morales) so Hideki will hit behind Juan against lefties, and most likely hit higher against righties," Scioscia said. "I talked to Hideki (Monday), and I think when he starts swinging it, we'll get him in the middle of the lineup. Right now he's searching, and so against lefties we'll go with this lineup."
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Rule No. 1 in the gamblers' handbook states, "Avoid sports betting on meaningless games."
When you're drowning in a sea of baseball monotony, however, things change. Even a hint of pro football betting can persuade the most disciplined bettor to break a few rules.
The NFL preseason is around the corner, with a tempting Hall of Fame match kicking off on Sunday. But bettors must stay vigilant. Wagering on NFL exhibition games is an entirely different beast than the regular season. Most fans don't recognize the players on the field because starters get as much action in August as Warcraft fans get on Prom night.
The only certainty about the NFL this time of year is uncertainty – and yet there are some who say betting in August can be a gold mine.
“I actually feel the NFL preseason presents solid profit opportunities for sharp bettors and handicappers,” Sports Expert Steve Merril explains. “My experience has been that the sportsbooks fear the preseason, which is evident by lower limits and massive moves.”
The line moves are attributed to the limited knowledge available regarding playing-time distribution. One team’s top unit out on the field for one more series has an impact on the pointspread. Setting lines in the preseason often is a shot in the dark.
“We base the betting lines mostly on public perception,” Pete Korner, founder of the Sports Club in Las Vegas, says. “It’s very tough to predict, almost a guessing game.”
The preseason is all about figuring out who’s in and for how long.
“It becomes a race between bettors and oddsmakers to find out how long the quarterbacks are going to stay in,” Korner admits. “If a sharp gets the information first, he could exploit an early line. I’m a full believer in moving the line in the preseason if the books find out something late in the week.”
Determining what each team’s motive is can help bettors handicap. To do this you must pay close attention to the philosophies head coaches employ in exhibition play.
“You need to know what a coach is trying to accomplish,” says Covers Expert Bryan Leonard. “Sometimes a new coach will want to instill a winning attitude. Others just want to make sure their starters don’t get hurt."
So how do you distinguish who’s playing scared and who’s playing for keeps?
“Head coaches on the hot seat or new coaches trying to implement a winning attitude usually try harder to win in the preseason,” Merril says.
Cleveland Browns head coach Romeo Crennel fits this criteria. He’s entering his third season as the sideline boss and has yet to lead the Browns to more than six wins.
Cleveland is an enticing bet as well because of the unresolved quarterback situation. General manager Phil Savage sacrificed the Browns’ first-round pick in next year’s draft for Brady Quinn, but the former Notre Dame quarterback hasn’t signed or reported to training camp yet.
Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson split time at QB last season and it looks like either player (or even Quinn) could be the opening-day starter.
“If a team has quarterback depth and the pecking order hasn’t been decided, it’s a big advantage,” Leonard says.
Even in the third week of the preseason when starters generally play the most, the final outcome of the game is in the hands of fringe players. A team's talent, all the way down to the last man on the roster, is something to consider.
The New England Patriots have long been considered one of the deeper teams in the NFL and coach Bill Belichick has said in the past he’s unafraid of stars getting hurt in games with nothing on the line. He shocked his colleagues in 2003 by playing some of his starters on special teams in the preseason.
“We want to have the team ready to play a tough, physical game and preparation has to go into that and I imagine a certain amount of injuries go with it,” Belichick told the Providence Journal in August 2003.
Bettors can only hope to find more teams that share the Pats' business-like approach to the preseason (New England is 17-9-3 against the spread since 2000) and take advantage of teams who detest the exhibition schedule.
To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your bet on football needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.
MySportsbook.com Favors Fighting Irish to win College Football betting odds
According to odds makers at MySportsbook.com, on January 8, the Fighting Irish faithful may be toasting their 14th national title in Arizona – Notre Dame’s first national championship in close to 20 years.
Although MySportsbook.com has listed Notre Dame as the 5-1 favorite to win thecollege football College Football betting, fans in Columbus do not need to cancel their tickets to Glendale just yet. The Ohio State Buckeyes, listed right behind the Irish at 7-1, are also heavy favorites to win college football’s most coveted prize, while West Virginia, USC and the 2007 National Champion Texas Longhorns - all listed at 8-1 – are strong contenders as well.
MySportsbook.com has also posted gambling odds on the conference championships for the ACC, Big 12 and SEC. In the ACC – it could be anyone’s title, particularly for the two schools from the Sunshine State. Florida State and Miami, both listed at 2-1, are favored to win the ACC Championship Game odds, with the ‘Noles hoping to finish in the nation’s top 10 for the first time in five years, and the ‘Canes looking to avenge their 10-7 loss against FSU in last year’s ACC Championship betting.
Moving west to the Big 12, MySportsbook.com has betting lines listing Texas as 7-5 favorites to repeat as conference champions, even though the Longhorns lost their national championship-winning quarterback Vince Young to the NFL. In the south, the Auburn Tigers – led by Heisman-hopeful senior running back Kenny Irons – have been given the best odds to win the SEC Championship odds at 5-2.
To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your Sportsbook accepts Visa needs.
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2-1 2-1 3-1 7-1 15-1 15-1 15-1 30-1 30-1 30-1 50-1 500-1 |
| Texas Oklahoma Nebraska Texas Tech Colorado Iowa State Texas A&M Kansas State Missouri Kansas Baylor Oklahoma State |
7-5 9-5 9-2 12-1 14-1 15-1 15-1 30-1 30-1 35-1 100-1 100-1 |
| Auburn Florida LSU Georgia Tennessee Arkansas Alabama Mississippi South Carolina Mississippi State Kentucky Vanderbilt |
5-2 11-4 4-1 6-1 7-1 7-1 9-1 20-1 28-1 75-1 100-1 300-1 |
For complete NCAA football odds please visit Mysportsbook.com.
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