Buchholz, Red Sox complete sweep of Dodgers

Baseball Betting Lines

06/20/2010 - Boston, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Clay Buchholz pitched effectively into the seventh to pick up his 10th win of the season, and the Red Sox shut down the Dodgers, 2-0, to complete a three-game interleague sweep.

Buchholz (10-4) yielded just three hits and three walks while striking out four in 6 2/3 scoreless innings. The 25-year-old right-hander has pitched to a 1.62 earned-run average over his last eight starts.

Daniel Bard recorded four outs behind Buchholz, and Jonathan Papelbon closed out Boston's 8-1 homestand in the ninth.

David Ortiz and Kevin Youkilis each drove in a run, while Dustin Pedroia, who had the game-winning single on Saturday, went 3-for-4 with a triple and a run scored for the Sox, whose six-game win streak is their longest of the season.

Hiroki Kuroda (6-5) was solid in seven innings of work, giving up a mere two runs on six hits and a walk to go with nine strikeouts for Los Angeles, which has dropped four straight.

Buchholz wiggled out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the first by fanning Garret Anderson and getting Casey Blake on a comebacker to the mound.

Pedroia got the Red Sox on the board in the bottom half, singling with one out and quickly stealing second. Russell Martin's throw to second got past the bag, and with the infield shifted for Ortiz, Pedroia alertly advanced to an unoccupied third.

Ortiz was intentionally walked, and Youkilis' check-swing dribbler down the third base line stayed fair, bringing in Pedroia for a 1-0 lead.

The Sox got another run in the third, as Marco Scutaro singled, moved to third on Pedroia's base hit and scored on an Ortiz sacrifice fly to right.

Buchholz induced a double-play lineout off the bat of Matt Kemp to end the second and retired 10 straight before tiring in the seventh.

Anderson led off with a ground-rule double to right-center, and Buchholz was pulled after plunking Blake DeWitt with two outs. Daniel Bard entered and needed just one pitch to get Jamey Carroll on a weak grounder to short.

James Loney flied out to the warning track in left to end the eighth, and Boston wasted Pedroia's leadoff triple in the bottom half.

Papelbon retired Anderson, Blake and Martin in succession in the ninth to record his 16th save of the season.

Game Notes

Ramirez went 2-for-3 with a walk and finished the series 5-for-12 with a solo homer in his return to Boston, which traded the slugger to LA prior to the trade deadline in 2008...Buchholz joined New York's Phil Hughes and Tampa Bay's David Price as the American League's only 10-game winners. All three pitchers are 25-years-old or younger...Red Sox outfielder J.D. Drew sat out for a second straight game with an injured hamstring...DeWitt left the game after getting hit in the seventh.

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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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