Carmona, Indians top Braves to avoid sweep

Baseball Betting Lines

06/17/2007 - Cleveland, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Fausto Carmona pitched seven-plus strong innings, as the Cleveland Indians avoided a three-game sweep with a 5-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves at Jacobs Field.

Carmona (8-2) gave up two runs on five hits while striking out five and walking two. Joe Borowski kept Atlanta off the scoreboard in the ninth to record his 20th save of the season.

Casey Blake went 1-for-4 and extended his hitting streak to 26 games for the Indians, who won for just the third time in their last eight games. Franklin Gutierrez finished 2-for-4 with two runs scored and an RBI.

Atlanta starter Kyle Davies went 5 1/3 innings and allowed five runs -- three earned -- on six hits. Davies (3-6) has now dropped three straight starts and four of his last five overall.

Chipper Jones, who went 2-for-4, recorded his 2,000 career hit with a single in the second inning for the Braves, who were looking to sweep their first interleague series on the road since winning three in a row at Boston in 2002.

Scott Thorman went 3-for-4 with a solo home run in the loss.

After four scoreless innings, Cleveland went up 1-0 in the fifth. Trot Nixon led things off with a walk and Gutierrez bunted for a single. Davies then recorded two outs before Jason Michaels roped a single to center to plate Gutierrez.

The Indians tacked on four runs in the sixth to extend their lead to 5-0. Victor Martinez led off the frame with a single and Jhonny Peralta followed with a double. Ryan Garko's grounder to first got past Thorman as Martinez and Peralta both scored on the play.

Nixon followed with a ground out to move Garko to third and he scored on Gutierrez's base hit. Chad Paronto then relieved Davies and Gutierrez stole second and hustled to third as Brian McCann's throw sailed into the outfield. The throwing error proved costly as Gutierrez scored on Josh Barfield's ground out to make it a five-run game.

The Braves scored twice in the eighth to get on the board. Thorman led things off with a home run and Carmona issued consecutive walks to Yunel Escobar and Kelly Johnson before being relieved by Rafael Betancourt. Willie Harris greeted Betancourt with a double down the right-field line to plate Escobar. However, Betancourt managed to settle down and recorded three straight outs to end the inning.

Atlanta put two runners on base in the ninth with one out, but Borowski got Escobar to ground out and Johnson to fly out to end the game.

Game Notes

Blake's hitting streak is the longest in the majors this season and longest in Cleveland history since catcher Sandy Alomar, Jr., hit safely in 30 straight games in 1997...Atlanta went 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position and stranded eight.

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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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