Latos returns from DL to face Pirates

Baseball Betting Lines

07/24/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Mat Latos returns from a short stint on the disabled list this evening when the San Diego Padres continue their three-game set with the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park.

Latos, who had been sidelined with a strained left oblique brought on by a sneeze, won his final five decisions before the All-Star break and is 10-4 on the year with a 2.45 earned run average.

Over his last four starts Latos has allowed just one run and has not surrendered one in his last two outings, spanning 15 innings. He has also allowed two runs or less in 12 of his last 13 starts.

This will be his first-ever start against the Pirates, who will pin their hopes on righty Jeff Karstens. Winless in his last three decisions, Karstens was done in by the longball in his last outing on Monday against Milwaukee. Karstens, a San Diego native, surrendered three runs on three hits - a solo home run, then a two-run shot - in six innings to fall to 2-5 on the year to go along with a 4.84 ERA.

Like Latos, Karstens will be making his first start against his opponent tonight, but he has faced the Padres twice out of the bullpen, going 0-1 after yielding five runs and three hits in 2 1/3 innings of work.

San Diego continued to thrive in the Steel City in the opener of this set on Friday, as Adrian Gonzalez capped a four-run second inning with a sacrifice fly, helping the Padres to a 5-3 victory.

Gonzalez is just 1-for-13 in his last four games, but has driven in 19 runs in his last 17 games against the Pirates.

Chris Denorfia stroked an RBI double for the Padres, who are 21-9 at Pittsburgh since the start of the 2001 season. Kevin Correia (7-6) gave up three runs -- two earned -- on six hits and three walks in six innings to record his first road win since April 28. He also had a run-scoring single.

"It wasn't great, but I made good pitches in the situations I needed to," Correia said.

San Diego is now an NL-best 26-20 away from home this season.

Lastings Milledge contributed a two-run single for the Pirates, while Paul Maholm (6-8), coming off a three-hit shutout against Houston in his last start, was tagged for four runs and nine hits over six full frames.

"I tried to keep us in the game," Maholm said. "I still felt like I could go out there and throw pitches where I wanted to."

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

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