Angels attempt to pin eighth straight loss on Mariners

Baseball Betting Lines

05/08/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The struggling Seattle Mariners will try to snap out of their rut tonight as they host the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the middle bout of a three-game set at Safeco Field.

After last night's 8-0 setback to the Angels, Seattle is now 0-7 on a current nine-game homestand. The Mariners have been outscored 40-9 over that span and are hitting just .169 during their longest slide since dropping 12 straight from September 11-22, 2008.

Felix Hernandez (2-3) had one of his worst starts as a professional last night, with the Mariners ace tying a career worst by allowing seven earned runs while lasting only 3 1/3 innings. He also matched a career worst by giving up three homers, all of which came in the fourth inning.

"You can look at his mechanics and they're a little bit out of whack, more than I've seen them in a long time," Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu said of Hernandez. "Especially [allowing] four walks and giving up the home runs. It's just uncharacteristic. The ballgame was over pretty quick with the eight runs up, especially the way [Seattle's] offense has been going."

Hernandez now has a three-start losing streak for the first time since a four- start stretch of defeats from April 27-May 13, 2008. In total, he gave up eight runs, five hits and walked four on Friday.

The Angels, meanwhile, watched Jered Weaver toss 7 1/3 shutout innings of two- hit ball to snap a seven-game slide. Weaver (4-1) held a no-hitter for 6 2/3 frames and walked three batters while fanning seven in the win. The lanky righty saw his season earned run average dip to 2.66 while improving to 9-3 lifetime versus the Mariners.

"I wasn't really worried about it," said Weaver of the no-hit bid. "I was just trying to limit the baserunners and just stick to my game plan."

Juan Rivera, Howie Kendrick and Ryan Budde all homered off Hernandez in the fourth inning, helping the Angels avoid what would have been the first eight- game losing streak since manager Mike Scioscia took over the team in 2000. Kendry Morales added a three-run double in the top of the first.

Joe Saunders hopes to receive the same kind of support tonight as he toes the rubber seeking to end a personal three-game slide. The left-hander is also looking to rebound from his worst performance of the season, when he allowed seven earned runs over just four innings of a 17-8 loss at Boston on Monday.

In his career against Seattle, Saunders has had great success, posting a 7-1 ledger with a 3.19 ERA in 10 lifetime starts. He is also a perfect 5-0 with a 2.55 ERA in six starts at Safeco.

For the Mariners, they will send Doug Fister to the hill and hope he can add to his surprising start. Fister has allowed just two runs in 16 innings over his last two outings, but failed to earn a decision in either. On Sunday, the right-hander tossed eight scoreless innings and allowed only three hits. The Mariners, however, came up short in a 3-1 verdict against Texas.

Fister made his lone career start against the Angels last season, picking up the victory after allowing just one run over 7 1/3 innings of work.

Los Angeles went 10-9 against the Mariners last season and has won four straight and six of the last eight matchups between the clubs. These two teams split 10 meetings at Safeco Field a season ago.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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