Pirates, Brewers to go back it at after slugfest

Baseball Betting Lines

07/21/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Though it went from a laugher to a nail-biter, the Pittsburgh Pirates were still able to snap their five-game losing streak to Milwaukee last night. Another offensive outburst might be needed, given Zach Duke's history against the Brewers.

The Pittsburgh starter will aim to halt his personal five-start slide this evening in the third contest of a four-game series versus the Brew Crew at PNC Park.

After losing a close encounter with the Brewers in Monday's opener, the Pirates raced out to a nine-run lead in the first inning of last night's contest, sending 13 batters to the plate in a frame that was highlighted by rookie Pedro Alvarez's first career grand slam and three Milwaukee errors that led to five unearned runs.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Pittsburgh scored nine runs in the first inning of a home game for the first time since Aug. 8, 1893, and the first time in any frame since June 8, 1989 at Philadelphia.

Amazingly, the Pirates lost that game to the Phillies over 21 years ago, and nearly did so again last night. Ryan Braun's two-run homer in the sixth inning pulled the Brewers to within a run, but Pittsburgh held on for an 11-9 victory for just its third win in its last 11 games.

Alvarez homered twice and drove in five runs while fellow rookie Neil Walker finished 5-for-5 with an RBI and run scored for the Pirates, who have still lost nine of 13 to the Brewers this year, including five of seven at home.

"That first inning was simply awesome," said Walker. "Hitting is contagious, and we certainly showed that. This is certainly something that we are capable of -- big innings like that one."

It was needed as well, as starter Brad Lincoln yielded seven runs over just 2 1/3 innings and the Pirates needed Octavio Dotel to record his 20th save of the season when all was said and done.

Lincoln actually exited the game before Milwaukee starter Dave Bush, who yielded 10 runs -- five earned -- over four innings of work. The right-hander had a streak of six straight starts in which he gave up two runs or fewer snapped.

"Other than this outing, I've been fairly pleased with how I've pitched for the last five or six outings," Bush said. "Sometimes these games just happen. Nothing was sharp for me tonight."

Jim Edmonds had a three-run homer for Milwaukee, which fell to 3-3 on an eight-game road trip.

Leadoff man Andrew McCutchen missed his second straight game for the Pirates due to a shoulder injury and is day-to-day. Pittsburgh could use his presence tonight, given that Duke hasn't won since May 18 and is just 3-7 with a 6.33 earned run average in 15 career starts versus the Brewers. That includes losses in both starts against them this year, with Duke giving up 14 earned runs over nine total innings for a 14.00 ERA.

Duke missed a month of action due to a left elbow injury and made his return to the rotation on Friday versus Houston. The left-hander saw his winless stretch extended even though he gave up just two runs on five hits over five innings of a 5-2 setback.

"[The Astros] didn't hit the ball hard off him, that's a good sign," Pirates manager John Russell said of the 27-year-old Duke, who is 3-9 with a 5.38 ERA this season. "They found some holes. For his first time back I thought he threw the ball pretty well."

While Duke has struggled versus the Brewers, Milwaukee starter Randy Wolf hasn't had similar issues against his opponent. Wolf is 8-2 with a 3.57 ERA in 16 career starts versus the Pirates and gone 1-1 with a 4.10 ERA in four starts versus them this year. He faced Pittsburgh in his final start before the All-Star break, allowing four runs on seven hits over six innings while serving up home-run balls to Lastings Milledge and Alvarez.

The 33-year-old lefty opened his second half with a victory versus Atlanta on Friday, allowing three runs on three hits and three walks over six innings of a 9-3 triumph. That victory moved Wolf to 7-8 with a 4.56 ERA on the season.

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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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