Sports Betting News: NFL Team History | NFL Football Betting | College Football Betting | Baseball Betting | Basketball Betting | College Basketball Betting | Hockey Betting | Golf Betting | Tennis Betting | Auto Racing Betting | Horse Racing Betting | Soccer Betting
08/13/2007 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Right-hander Chad Durbin returns to the starting rotation for the Detroit Tigers tonight when they host the Oakland Athletics in the finale of a four-game set at Comerica Park.
Durbin, a 29-year-old who was drafted in the third round by the Kansas City Royals in 1996, has made 15 starts and 12 appearances out of the bullpen this season. He was exclusively used in relief between mid-June and early August, then lasted 4 1/3 innings against Tampa Bay in a start on August 8.
He's pitched twice against the Athletics in relief during 2007, combining to toss 2 1/3 scoreless innings while allowing one hit and striking out three. In his career, Durbin is 2-2 in eight appearances -- six starts -- against Oakland and has allowed 25 earned runs in 33 innings.
Slumping right-hander Chad Gaudin goes for the Athletics in search of his first win since July 5.
The 24-year-old New Orleans native was 8-3 after a 3-2 defeat of Seattle, but has since gone 0-5 in six starts since, allowing at least four earned runs in each outing.
He was touched for eight hits and seven runs in five innings en route to an 8-6 loss in Texas in his last start on Tuesday.
This will be Gaudin's first lifetime start against the Tigers. He's made five career relief appearances against them and is 1-0 with a 1.29 ERA in seven innings, allowing four hits and a run.
On Sunday, Magglio Ordonez blasted two home runs off Dallas Braden in an eight-run second inning as Detroit downed Oakland, 11-6.
Ordonez became just the second player in Tigers history to go deep twice in the same inning, joining the legendary Al Kaline, who belted two homers in the sixth inning of an April 17, 1955 affair against Kansas City. Ordonez is a gaudy 8-for-12 in the series with three homers and eight RBI.
Brandon Inge finished 1-for-3 with two RBI for the Tigers, who won their second straight and leapfrogged over Cleveland to take first place in the AL Central by one-half game. The Indians fell to the New York Yankees, 5-3, Sunday.
Nate Robertson (7-9) allowed four runs on five hits in 5 2/3 innings to earn the win.
Marco Scutaro was 3-for-4 with a two-run homer and a pair of run-scoring doubles for the Athletics, who have lost three of their last five games. Mark Ellis and Dan Johnson added an RBI apiece.
Braden (1-7) was rocked for eight runs on seven hits in just 1 2/3 innings en route to the loss.
These teams have split six encounters so far in 2007. Detroit won five of nine regular-season game against Oakland last season, then swept the A's in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series in October.
<< Bonds returns to Pittsburgh for first time as home run king
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Pittsburgh Pirates hope a change of scenery won't bring
an end to their success over the Giants. Tonight the Bucs will shoot for their
fourth and fifth straight wins over San Francisco when the clubs play a
doubleh
<< Rangers rip D-Rays
Arlington, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Marlon Byrd and Ian Kinsler each drove in two
runs as the Texas Rangers downed the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 9-1, in the finale
of a three-game set.
Kason Gabbard started the game, but left with one out in the
<< Vikings activate James
Eden Prairie, MN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Minnesota Vikings activated defensive
end Erasmus James from the physically unable to perform list on Sunday.
James hasn't played since tearing a ligament in his left knee in the second
game of la
<< Howard's blast helps Phils hold off Atlanta
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ryan Howard's three-run home run in the
fifth gave Philadelphia the lead, as the Phillies held off the Atlanta Braves,
5-3, in the rubber match of a three-game set at Citizens Bank Park.
Veteran left-h
Blue Jays try to extend road success in finale with Royals >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Toronto Blue Jays aim for a rare road series win when
they close out a four-game set with the Kansas City Royals this evening at
Kauffman Stadium.
Toronto has claimed two of the first three weekend matchups with Kansas
Scorching Yanks come back home to face Orioles >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chien-Ming Wang looks for his second straight successful
outing against Baltimore when the New York Yankees host the Orioles tonight in
the first of a three-game series at Yankee Stadium.
Wang, a 27-year-old Taiwanese
Twins nearing rock bottom >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The month of August has been a complete disaster for the
Minnesota Twins, who are very likely watching their playoff hopes pass them by
after dropping below .500 for the first time in two months.
So far, Minnesota is just
Wild weekend at Watkins Glen >>
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Which one of the following things happened
this weekend?
1) Robby Gordon made more friends than enemies.
2) Bill Elliott showed another reason they call him "Awesome Bill from
Dawsonville" when he gave
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
Recently I had an email debate with an angry reader who said I did not understand "the science of oddsmaking", as he called it.
He said I was wrong for suggesting oddsmakers care about who wins or loses games.
"Oddsmakers only care about splitting the betting public 50/50 on both sides of the line and keeping the commission (a.k.a. juice)," he wrote.
He might have been right about not understanding "the science of oddsmaking". After all, I'm not an oddsmaker. That said, I stick to my assertion that oddsmakers (a.k.a. sportbooks) often do care about who wins games.
Granted, as a general rule, sportsbooks try to balance their action so that they're not exposed to big losses. However, there are times when this is difficult to pull off, regardless of how much a line has moved. There are also times when that general rule is ignored and a book pursues risk.
Generally speaking, it's safe to say the books in Vegas are risk-adverse. Unlike in the past when the wise guys ruled the town, Vegas is now corporate and the goal of most casinos is to make as much money as possible with as little risk as possible.
Thus, Vegas sportsbooks try everything in their power to balance the action. They're satisfied simply collecting the juice. But these profits are small, especially compared to the take from other casino games, namely slot machines.
Because the profits at Vegas sportsbooks are so small, you could argue that many casinos operate sportsbooks simply as a novelty to keep the tourists happy.
With a growing aversion to risk, it should come as no surprise that Vegas bookmakers have been panicking this NFL season.
Despite huge pointspreads, a disproportionate percentage of bettors are still laying their money on favorites like the Eagles, Colts, Pats and Vikings rather than the dogs (a common trend for the largely recreational bettors that visit Vegas).
And much to the dismay of the books, those favorites are finding ways to cover the thick chalk. In fact, prior to Week 7, the four teams listed above are a combined 16-2-2 (88 percent) against the spread. (The tables turned dramatically in Week 7, but more on that later.)
The result has been an early-season beating for the books, and a bonanza for bettors.
While Vegas increasingly hates risk, it's no longer a major player in the sports betting world. Most of the betting action now takes place offshore where sportsbooks are not as obsessed about balance. In fact, some books encourage exposure to risk because the rewards can be so much bigger.
Consider MySportsbook.com. On its website, the book has odds pages which actually display the amount of action it's getting on games. In other words, you can see how much action the book is taking on both sides of a pointspread, moneyline or over/under.
One look at these numbers and it's obvious MySportsbook.com does not balance every game. In fact, far from it.
Take last weekend's matchup between St. Louis and Miami. By game time on Sunday, 83 percent of the betting action at MySportsbook.com was on the Rams; only 17 percent was on Miami.
What's interesting is that MySportsbook.com opened the pointspread with Miami at +6 1/2. By game time, the spread had lowered to +5.
That goes contrary to the balancing theory. If MySportsbook.com had wanted to balance the action, it would have given Miami more points; instead, it took away 1 1/2. World Series odds are now up as well.
MySportsbook.com exposed itself to even more to risk, and rolled the dice on the underdog Dolphins. Why? I contacted a representative with the book to find out. His answer was simple.
"The line moved early based on 'smart money' from sharp players," said Jeff Gilroy, a spokesperson for the book. "We also knew from early in the week that we would need Miami, therefore (we dropped) the spread to encourage Rams money.
"At the end of the day, we liked the home team."
So the conclusion is this: MySportsbook.com respected the sharp action, and gambled that the sharp bettors had a better take on the game than the recreational bettors, who were hammering the visiting Rams.
In the end, the gamble paid off. Miami, desperate for a win in front of its home fans, pounded the overrated Rams, who are terrible on the road and even worse on grass. Final score: 31-14 Fish.
MySportsbook.com was also heavily exposed on numerous favorites in Week 7, including Philadelphia, Seattle and Denver. All three failed to cover.
The fact that sportsbooks are exposed to risk on certain games is really nothing new. The fact, that Sportsbook.com is willing to show the public where it's exposed is intriguing.
Armed with this type of information, bettors can make more educated wagers. They can get an idea where the sharp money is going and conversely where the public money is headed.
MySportsbook.com is opening up its cashbox, letting bettors look inside and challenging them to take their best shot at grabbing the cash.
To visit this online football betting got to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting odds needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.
Sports Betting News: NFL Team History | NFL Football Betting | College Football Betting | Baseball Betting | Basketball Betting | College Basketball Betting | Hockey Betting | Golf Betting | Tennis Betting | Auto Racing Betting | Horse Racing Betting | Soccer Betting