Cardinals do talking with sweep, jump Reds for divison lead

Baseball Betting Lines

08/11/2010 - Cincinnati, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Colby Rasmus belted a grand slam in support of Adam Wainwright's seven scoreless innings as St. Louis downed Cincinnati, 6-1, to complete a three-game sweep and move into sole possession of first place in the National League Central.

Wainwright (17-6) put together another dominant performance, as he allowed just two hits, did not walk a batter and struck out four for the Cardinals, who lead the season series, 10-5.

Skip Schumaker had three hits and drove in a run and Jon Jay added a pair of hits and a run scored for St. Louis, which has won five of its last six contests to move one game ahead of Cincinnati.

Bronson Arroyo (12-7) lasted five innings, giving up four runs on six hits while walking three and striking out two for the Reds, who were last swept in a three-game series June 18-20 in Seattle.

Wainwright retired the side in order in four different frames and did not allow a runner past second base for a second straight start to match Ubaldo Jimenez for the major league lead in wins. His outing was limited to seven frames by a rain delay that lasted for 46 minutes heading into to the top of the eighth.

The Cardinals loaded the bases with two outs after a walk to Wainwright in the second inning, but couldn't score after Brendan Ryan struck out.

The visitors filled the bases again in the fifth on a Jay double and walks to Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday before Rasmus belted a 3-2 offering from Arroyo over the wall in straightaway centerfield for the Cardinals' second decisive grand slam of the series.

St. Louis then put the game out of reach with a pair of runs in the seventh off Jordan Smith on back-to-back run-scoring singles by Yadier Molina and Schumaker.

Cincinnati finally got on the board in the eighth when Brandon Phillips and Paul Janish singled with two outs to chase Mitchell Boggs from the hill. He was replaced by Trever Miller, who have up a base hit to Joey Votto that scored Phillips and brought Mike MacDougal out of the Cardinals bullpen. Scott Rolen then fouled out to the catcher Molina to end the threat.

Game Notes

The Reds were swept in a four-game set in Philadelphia July 8-11...The Cardinals last swept the Reds in a series September 26-28, 2008...Wainwright evened his career record against Cincinnati at 3-3 with two of the wins coming this season...He is 19-3 against division opponents since the start of 2009... The St. Louis trio of Wainwright, Chris Carpenter and Jaime Garcia allowed a total of nine hits in the series and each won their start as the Redbirds improved to 48-24 in their starts...Pujols lost a 10-game hit streak, but he scored for a tenth consecutive game...Holliday went 1-for-2 and has hit safely in seven straight and 23 out of his last 25...The Cardinals placed veteran right-hand pitcher Jeff Suppan on the 15-day disabled list with a sore groin and purchased the contract of catcher Steven Hill from Double-A Springfield... Arroyo dropped to 7-10 in his career against the Cardinals, including 1-2 this season...UFC star Rich Franklin threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the game.

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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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