Skidding Indians head out west to battle Mariners

Baseball Betting Lines

09/02/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Cleveland Indians will take their four-game losing streak out west for seven straight games starting with tonight's opener of a four-game series against the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field.

The Indians are coming off a three-game sweep at the hands of the Chicago White Sox, culminating with Wednesday's 6-4 loss in the series finale. Carlos Carrasco made his 2010 debut for the Tribe and pitched well enough in the no- decision, allowing three runs in 7 1/3 innings.

Justin Germano gave up two runs in the eighth inning to suffer the loss, as the Indians blew a 4-1 lead and allowed four runs in the decisive eighth frame. Jensen Lewis was reached for a run in the ninth.

"It was a tough series emotionally," Indians manager Manny Acta said. "I hope we learned from it. I thought our starters threw very well, but we struggled from the back end."

Asdrubal Cabrera and Jordan Brown both knocked in a run, while Shin-Soo Choo and Jayson Nix finished with three hits and a run scored for Cleveland, which is last in the Central and will also visit the LA Angels of Anaheim.

Rookie Josh Tomlin will take the mound Thursday for the Indians and is 2-3 with a 4.08 ERA in six starts. He has lost three straight outings before topping Kansas City last Friday in a 15-4 rout at Progressive Field. He held the Royals to three runs in five innings, despite walking a career-high four.

The right-hander, who is 0-2 in three road starts, has never faced Seattle.

Seattle has lost eight of its last 11 games and dropped two of three meetings with the Angels in the Emerald City. In Thursday's 4-2 loss, Jason Vargas was touched for three runs over seven innings and struck out four in defeat. He allowed the go-ahead, two-run homer by Hideki Matsui in the seventh inning.

"Vargas was good tonight," Mariners manager Daren Brown said. "I thought he did an outstanding job. Actually, 6 2/3 solid innings then he left a pitch up to Matsui at the wrong time in the game and it cost him. But, I thought he did a nice job."

Franklin Gutierrez had two hits and the lone RBI for the Mariners, who are the cellar dwellers in the AL West. Ichiro Suzuki has recorded at least 200 hits in each of his nine seasons and currently has 171. He has two hits in each of his last three games.

Doug Fister gets the nod for the M's tonight and he's 4-10 with a 3.73 ERA in 22 starts this season. Fister, who is just 1-9 in his last 15 starts, suffered a hard-luck loss the last time out in a 1-0 setback versus Minnesota last Saturday. He allowed the only run in seven innings with six strikeouts.

The righty, who faced Cleveland for the first time in his career back on August 22 of last season in a no-decision, owns a 3-5 ledger in 13 starts at Safeco Field this season.

Seattle won two of three meetings with Cleveland last month from Aug. 13-15 at Progressive Field. The Indians, however, are 6-3 in the last nine meetings.

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Big 12 Conference betting odds

Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.

Work left to do:

Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.

Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.

Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.


SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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