Damon, Porcello help Tigers down White Sox

Baseball Betting Lines

09/09/2010 - Detroit, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Johnny Damon went 4-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored, and Rick Porcello threw eight strong frames as the Tigers handed the White Sox a third straight loss, 6-3, to close out a four-game series.

Ryan Raburn and Jhonny Peralta each drove in a pair and Will Rhymes had three hits and two runs scored for Detroit, which won the final three games in the set to put Chicago further back in the American League Central race.

The White Sox, despite a relatively successful 7-3 road trip, now trail the idle Minnesota Twins by six games heading into a nine-game homestand

Porcello (9-11) won a fourth straight start, scattering four hits and three runs while striking out three and walking none in the win.

Gavin Floyd (10-12) was knocked around for 13 hits -- all singles -- while five of the six runs he allowed in six-plus innings were earned. Alex Rios hit a two-run homer in defeat.

The Tigers went right to work in the top of the first, with Austin Jackson leading off with a walk, advancing to second on Rhymes' single and scoring on Damon's line drive base hit to right.

Rhymes scored on a double-play ball off the bat of Raburn, then singled to open the third and came around on another Raburn groundout. A Peralta single later in the inning plated Damon for a 4-0 cushion.

Porcello set down the first 10 batters he saw before Omar Vizquel singled in front of Rios' home run to left.

Detroit got a run back on Raburn's two-out, bases-loaded single in the bottom half, and it stayed 5-2 until the seventh, when Paul Konerko led off the away half with a hit and eventually raced home on a wild pitch.

Again the Tigers answered in their turn, as Peralta's sacrifice fly to the warning track in left knocked in Damon.

Ryan Perry relieved the effective Porcello in the ninth and survived a leadoff walk to notch his second save of the season.

Game Notes

Chicago plays three games against the Royals starting Friday before welcoming Minnesota for a crucial three-game set...Tigers first baseman and AL MVP candidate Miguel Cabrera sat out for the second straight game with a shoulder injury...Perry's other save came on April 10 against Cleveland...Floyd was 5-0 with a 3.20 earned-run average in 13 previous starts against the Tigers, while Porcello was winless (0-4) in five starts against Chicago with an 8.67 ERA.

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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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