Mets head to Pittsburgh for makeup with Bucs
Baseball Betting Lines
07/02/2009 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Before the New York Mets begin a critical three-game set in Philadelphia this weekend, they must first play a makeup game in the Keystone State against the Pittsburgh Pirates today at PNC Park.
Today's contest was originally supposed to be the third of a four-game set in early June, but was postponed due to rain. The Pirates won the other three matchups in the series and should they win this afternoon, would complete their first four-game sweep of the Mets - albeit in the rare variety - since September 29-October 1, 1989
New York, though, enters on a bit of a high note after right-hander Mike Pelfrey gave the team exactly what it needed on Wednesday. He tossed nearly eight shutout innings against Milwaukee to help the Mets eke out a 1-0 win and snap a five-game losing streak in the process.
Pelfrey (6-3) helped the Mets grab the victory after keeping the Brewers off the scoreboard for 7 2/3 innings. He allowed six hits, walked two and struck out six.
"Mike Pelfrey was outstanding," Mets manager Jerry Manuel said. "Tremendous, tremendous effort by him. Good command of all his pitches. He got the ground ball when he needed it."
Ryan Church had one of New York's five hits, walked once and drove in the game's lone run.
With Philadelphia's loss in Atlanta, New York moved within two games of the defending world champions for first place in the NL East, with Florida a half- game back of Philadelphia. New York will visit the City of Brotherly Love for a three-game series starting Friday.
Getting the call this afternoon for the Mets will be righty Tim Redding, who is 1-3 with a 6.35 earned run average. Redding was charged with the loss on Saturday against the Yankees, as he gave up five runs and six hits - including two homers - in 5 1/3 innings. The Mets, though, mustered just one hit in that contest.
Redding has faced the Pirates 11 times and is 2-2 with a 3.79 ERA in those contests.
Pittsburgh, meanwhile, will pin its hopes on lefty Paul Maholm, who was roughed up by the Mets back on May 9. New York hit him for seven runs and 10 hits in five innings, dropping him to 3-2 with a 3.65 ERA in six lifetime starts against them .
Maholm, though, picked up the win on Saturday against Kansas City, as he limited the Royals to a pair of runs and five hits in seven innings to improve to 5-4 to go along with a 4.35 ERA for the season.
Pittsburgh enters tonight's tilt on the heels of dropping two of three to the Chicago Cubs, including a 4-1 setback in Wednesday's rubber match.
Pirates starter Virgil Vasquez (1-1) went six frames, allowing three runs on seven hits with three walks and two strikeouts to take the loss. He allowed two runs and four hits in six innings and recorded seven strikeouts in that game.
Brandon Moss knocked in the lone run for the Pirates with a single. Andrew McCutchen and Jason Jaramillo each had two hits for Pittsburgh, which has won five of its last eight games despite the loss.
"Wells threw a great game against us. He didn't miss his spots at all," Pirates manager John Russell said about Cubs starter Randy Wells, who held the Pirates to one run over seven innings of work.
Pittsburgh is 3-3 this season against the Mets.
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Sportsbook Betting Lines
Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?
Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.
“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.
“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?
There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).
How the Opening Line Is Made
The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.
Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.
The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.
Why Sports Betting Lines Change
Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game
Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.
Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.
Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”
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