Cardinals send Braves to eighth straight loss

Baseball Betting Lines

04/28/2010 - St. Louis, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jaime Garcia pitched seven shutout innings, and the St. Louis Cardinals extended Atlanta's losing streak with a 6-0 win over the Braves at Busch Stadium.

Garcia (2-1) allowed only four hits and a walk while fanning five for the Cardinals, who have won four straight games, including the first three of this four-game set. David Freese went 2-for-3 with two runs batted in, while Albert Pujols and Colby Rasmus each had a pair of hits, an RBI and a run scored in the win.

Yunel Escobar doubled and was the lone Braves player to reach third base, as Atlanta dropped its eighth straight game. Kenshin Kawakami (0-4) lasted only 4 1/3 innings, giving up five runs -- four earned -- on five hits and four walks.

The Braves' losing streak is their longest since a 10-game skid from June 11-22, 2006.

St. Louis got to Kawakami early, scoring twice in the first. Skip Schumaker led off with a single, and Ryan Ludwick's ground ball eluded the shortstop Escobar, allowing Schumaker to reach second. Pujols followed with a base hit up the middle to plate Schumaker.

Two batters later, Ludwick raced home on a wild pitch to make it 2-0.

Schumaker scored on a wild pitch with the bases loaded and nobody out in the third, but the Cardinals were unable to tack on any more runs.

St. Louis scored three more runs in the fifth to push the margin to six.

Pujols smacked a one-out double, and Matt Holliday was intentionally walked. Rasmus followed with an RBI double off Jonny Venters, and, after an intentional walk to Yadier Molina, Freese's single plated Holliday and Rasmus for a 6-0 edge.

Meanwhile, Garcia was masterful in never allowing an Atlanta player to reach third base during his outing. The Braves finally put a runner at third against Kyle McClellan in the eighth, as Escobar doubled with one out and advanced on Martin Prado's single.

McClellan, though, got Chipper Jones to fly out and Troy Glaus to strike out to end the inning. Mitchell Boggs pitched a scoreless ninth to seal the win.

Game Notes

Garcia lowered his ERA to just 1.04...The Braves have been outscored, 34-13, over their losing streak, which includes two shutouts...Atlanta has scored five runs over Kawakami's four starts...The Braves have not homered in their last eight games, a drought lasting 273 at-bats...Melky Cabrera was the lone Atlanta player with two hits.

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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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