Lohse hoping to pitch Cardinals past Brewers

Baseball Betting Lines

09/07/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Though the St. Louis Cardinals appear to be loaded at the top of their pitching rotation, the back end could use some work.

Kyle Lohse gets a chance to claim his rotation spot this evening, when St. Louis tries to gain more ground in the National League Central with the second contest of a three-game series versus the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park.

The Cardinals' top three starters of Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter and Jaime Garcia have combined to notch 45 wins, but closer Ryan Franklin ranks fourth on the club with six victories. Jake Westbrook, Jeff Suppan and Lohse have just four victories between the three of them.

Lohse, a 15-game winner in 2008 with St. Louis, is just 2-6 with a 7.12 earned run average in 12 starts this year and will pitch tonight on nine days' rest after getting drilled for eight runs on 11 hits over five innings in an Aug. 28 loss in Washington.

Still, manager Tony La Russa won't hesitate in giving the start to Lohse tonight.

"Kyle gets the ball Tuesday because I think there's an anticipation he's got the best chance to get us a [win]," he told St. Louis' website. "And then that spot comes again [next] Sunday. So it's an opportunity for him to justify the confidence."

The 31-year-old righty's first start of the season came in Milwaukee on April 9, and he got a no-decision after yielding four runs over six innings. He is 3-5 with a 5.24 ERA versus the Brewers lifetime.

Lohse will try to keep the Cardinals' momentum going after they picked up their third victory in four games following a five-game slide with Monday's 8-6 triumph over Milwaukee.

The Cardinals snapped a 2-2 tie with six runs in the eighth inning, highlighted by Yadier Molina's second career grand slam. Westbrook gave up two runs over a six-inning start and Mitchell Boggs got the win in relief.

The victory pulled St. Louis to within six games of first-place Cincinnati.

"It was a great win," said La Russa. "[The Brewers] are a tough club to play here because of all that power. We got touched up at the end, but everybody got the outs that they needed."

Corey Hart hit a pair of homers and Rickie Weeks added a solo shot for Milwaukee, which has lost six of its last seven.

Yovani Gallardo threw seven innings for the Brewers and was charged with two runs on four hits. Zach Braddock was tagged with the loss in relief.

"Gallardo threw the ball very well and gave us the innings that we needed," said Milwaukee manager Ken Macha. "It was a big night for Corey with the two home runs. We just didn't get the bullpen help we needed."

The Brewers send Chris Narveson to the hill tonight, and the left-hander has allowed three earned runs or less in each of his last seven starts. He has also given up just three runs in his last two outings, including a no-decision in Cincinnati on Wednesday in which he allowed a run on two hits and two walks over 6 1/3 innings.

Narveson is 10-7 with a 5.33 ERA in 32 games (23 starts) this year and 0-1 with a 4.30 ERA lifetime against the Cardinals. That loss came in his last matchup with them, which took place on July 2 in St. Louis, and he was charged with four runs over five innings.

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MySportsbook.com Releases World Series Championship Lines

New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox early favorites to win 2008 World Series
The Major League Baseball season starts this weekend and MySportsbook.com, a leading online sportsbook for over 8 years, is the first to offer baseball sports betting lines on who will win the 2007 World Series.

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Going in to this weekend, MySportsbook.com's favorites to win the World Series are the New York Yankees at 7-2 and last year’s winners the Chicago White Sox at 9-2.

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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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