Boston goes for sweep of Rays behind Lackey

Baseball Betting Lines

05/26/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Starting pitching was supposed to be one of the Red Sox's strengths in 2010. That has been the case over their current four-game winning streak, but things could go sour quick if John Lackey can't find his form.

The struggling Lackey, who will start opposite of one of the American League's top young hurlers in the Rays' Matt Garza, will try to lead Boston to its first sweep in St. Petersburg in over seven years tonight when his club wraps up a three-game set with Tampa Bay at Tropicana Field.

The Red Sox have matched their longest winning streak of the season, winning for the fourth straight time last night with a 2-0 victory over the Rays. Boston's starters have picked up the win in each of those four victories while posting a collective 0.32 earned run average.

It's been a nice turnaround for the Red Sox, who were swept in four games by the Rays at Fenway Park on April 17-19. Boston aims for its first sweep of the Rays in Tampa Bay since taking all four games of a series in St. Petersburg from Sept. 9-12, 2002.

Boston would love for Lackey to join the pitching parade after signing him to a five-year, $82.5 million deal this offseason. However, he has struggled to just a 4-3 record this season with a 5.07 ERA.

Lackey has pitched to a 7.50 ERA over his last three starts and lost his second in a row on Friday in Philadelphia, giving up four runs on six hits and five walks while needing 107 pitches to get through five innings.

It was Lackey's shortest outing since the 31-year-old righty lasted just 3 1/3 innings in a setback to the Rays on April 19. Lackey was drilled for eight runs on nine hits in that outing, including a five-run third inning in which Evan Longoria hit a two-run double and B.J. Upton followed with a three-run homer.

That outing came one day after Garza threw eight shutout innings of four-hit ball in a win at Fenway Park, improving to 6-2 with a 2.92 ERA in 13 career starts versus the Red Sox.

Garza, who is tied for second in the American League with a 2.37 ERA, has pitched eight innings in five of his starts this year, including Friday versus the Astros. The right-hander allowed two runs on six hits, but took a tough 2-1 loss to fall to 5-2 on the season. The 26-year-old Garza is 0-1 in his last three starts despite a 2.91 ERA.

Garza will be looking to slow down Boston slugger David Ortiz, who is hitting just .136 (3-for-22) lifetime against Garza with two homers and four RBI.

After hitting just .143 in April, Ortiz is batting .359 this month with eight homers and 21 RBI. He slugged a two-run double in the third inning on Tuesday to back six scoreless innings from winning pitcher Jon Lester.

Lester allowed Tampa Bay's only hit, a single to Willy Aybar in the fourth inning, but also walked a season-high five with nine strikeouts to combine with three other pitchers on the shutout. Jonathan Papelbon notched his 11th save of the season and helped the Red Sox win for the seventh time in their last eight games.

"I had a hard time getting into a rhythm," said Lester. "It was one of those nights; it was just kind of a battle from the beginning. I was just not in a rhythm, not in the flow of the game, just kind of had a thick feeling. It's obviously nice to get out of there without any runs."

Jason Bartlett walked three times for the Rays, who have lost three of five since a six-game win streak, and James Shields took a tough-luck loss despite giving up just the two runs over eight innings and retiring the final 16 batters he faced.

"I'm not in any way discouraged," Rays manager Joe Maddon told his team's website. "I just really hate wasting that good of a pitching performance."

Maddon was ejected in the fifth inning along with Carl Crawford for arguing balls and strikes.

Crawford, meanwhile, could have a suspension coming after it appeared his helmet made contact with home-plate umpire Bob Davidson during a heated exchange after a called strike. Tampa Bay could certainly use Crawford tonight as he is 14-for-34 (.412) lifetime versus Lackey with a homer and seven RBI.

The Rays still lead the Yankees by five games for first place in the American League East, while the Red Sox have pulled to within 6 1/2 games.

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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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