Astros return home to battle Cardinals

Baseball Betting Lines

06/06/2008 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Coming off a rough nine-game road trip, the Houston Astros return to the comfortable surroundings of Minute Maid Park tonight for the first of three straight meetings with the division-rival St. Louis Cardinals.

Houston lost plenty of ground to the Cardinals and the red-hot Chicago Cubs in the National League Central standings after winning just twice during the three-city swing, which began with two losses in three games to St. Louis from May 27-29. The Astros hope to close the gap with a nine-game stretch at Minute Maid Park, where the club has compiled a strong 15-9 record so far this season.

The Astros were handed their seventh loss in eight games with Thursday's 4-3 setback in Pittsburgh. The Pirates' Jason Bay drove in the eventual winning run with a tie-breaking triple in the bottom of the fifth inning, while Bucs starter Paul Maholm worked eight strong frames to make the lead stand.

Brandon Backe (4-7) took the loss after allowing four runs and nine hits over the first six innings. The Houston starter did help himself at the plate, though, with an RBI single in the second inning.

Lance Berkman singled in his first at-bat to extend his hitting streak to 10 games. The Houston slugger is batting .368 (14-for-38) during the run and a robust .382 on the season.

The Cardinals come into town after having to play a doubleheader at Washington yesterday due to a rainout on Wednesday. St. Louis received another strong showing from Todd Wellemeyer in a 4-1 decision over the Nationals in the opener, but suffered a 10-9, 10-inning loss in the nightcap.

Wellemeyer (7-1) posted his fifth straight winning decision by twirling six shutout innings. The right-hander yielded just five hits and one walk while striking out five.

Troy Glaus socked a two-run homer in game one and Albert Pujols hit the first pinch-hit home run of his career, a solo blast in the seventh inning.

Pujols, who is bothered by a strained left calf, also did not start Thursday's second game but was used as a pinch hitter. The All-Star first baseman is considered questionable to return to the lineup tonight.

Joe Mather went 2-for-5 with a homer and three runs scored in the nightcap, while Glaus homered again for St. Louis, which lost for just the third time in its last nine games. Relief pitcher Mark Worrell added a three-run blast in the sixth inning during the rookie's first major league at-bat.

Mather's first career homer put the Cardinals up by a 9-8 score in the top of the 10th, but Ryan Franklin (2-2) served up a two-run shot to Elijah Dukes in the bottom of the frame to give the Nationals a twinbill split.

Braden Looper goes in search of his eighth victory of the season when he takes the mound tonight for the Cardinals. The converted reliever upped his 2008 record to 7-4 with a solid 5 2/3 innings in Sunday's 7-4 decision over Pittsburgh.

Looper allowed three runs and eight hits in his latest outing, a big improvement over the righty's previous start. Against the Astros on May 27, Looper was tagged for eight runs (7 earned) and nine hits while lasting just 4 1/3 innings in an 8-2 St. Louis loss.

The veteran hurler did fire seven shutout innings versus Houston on April 25, although he did not receive a decision, and is 7-4 lifetime against the Astros with a 3.12 earned run average in 37 games (7 starts).

Brian Moehler gets the assignment tonight for Houston and is coming off a loss in his most recent mound trip. The journeyman did strike out a season-high six batters over five innings Saturday at Milwaukee, but permitted three runs and wound up on the wrong side of a 4-1 decision.

Since entering the Houston rotation in early May, Moehler has posted a 2-2 record and a solid 3.81 ERA in five starts. He has faced the Cardinals twice in relief this season and allowed one run over two innings of work.

For his career, the 36-year-old is 2-0 with a 4.89 ERA in 13 games against St. Louis, five of which have come as a starter.

These NL Central foes have already met nine times this season, with the Cardinals winning six of the clashes. The Cardinals took two of three games from the Astros at Minute Maid Park from April 7-9.

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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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