Ortiz's late heroics helps BoSox slip past Detroit

Baseball Betting Lines

07/31/2010 - Boston, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - David Ortiz provided some late-game dramatics yet again, belting a game-winning three-run double in the ninth inning to lift the Red Sox to a 5-4 victory over the Detroit Tigers.

Ryan Perry, who came into the game for the Tigers in the seventh, began the ninth by allowing a leadoff single to Darnell McDonald and was lifted in favor of Phil Coke (6-2).

Coke was able to induce a fly out from Marco Scutaro, but Jed Lowrie followed with a pinch-hit double to send McDonald to third. After intentionally walking Kevin Youkilis to load the bases, Ortiz blasted a double to deep center to plate all three runners and win the game.

Ortiz's hit comes one game after his ninth-inning grand slam nearly gave Boston another comeback win, falling just one run short in Friday's 6-5 defeat in the series opener. The rally made a winner of Hideki Okajima (4-3), who threw one scoreless frame.

Ryan Kalish, making his major league debut, added two hits, an RBI and a run scored for the Red Sox, who have won six of nine but finished July at a mediocre 12-13. McDonald finished 2-for-4 with an RBI in the win.

Miguel Cabrera clubbed his 26th home run of the season for the Tigers, who have lost five of six. Max Scherzer was denied the win despite allowing just one run on nine hits and a walk while fanning three in 6 1/3 frames.

It didn't take long for the Tigers to put a couple runs on the board.

Will Rhymes worked a one-out walk, and, after Brennan Boesch fouled out, Cabrera crushed a 1-0 pitch down the middle well over the Green Monster for a two-run Detroit advantage.

The visitors added to their lead in the second, as Jeff Frazier singled with one away, moved to second on a Gerald Laird's infield single and scored on Ramon Santiago's base hit to center.

Santiago's RBI double in the fourth made it 4-0, and Scherzer made it stand up with a gem of an outing.

Scherzer was also the beneficiary of three double plays before the Red Sox got to him in the seventh. Adrian Beltre reached on an infield single and moved to third when Bill Hall singled and got thrown out at second trying to stretch the play. Brad Thomas was brought in from the bullpen and yielded an RBI single to Kalish before McDonald's RBI double off Perry brought Boston to within 4-2.

Perry, though, limited the damage in the inning and pitched around a leadoff single in the eighth to maintain Detroit's two-run advantage.

Game Notes

A roster spot was made available for Kalish when Jeremy Hermida was designated for assignment...The Tigers still lead the season series, 3-2...Cabrera, with a 2-for-3 effort, raised his batting average to .351 (second in the AL) and increased his MLB-leading RBI total to 91. His 26 homers are second in the league, five behind Toronto's Jose Bautista.

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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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