Braves get first look at Strasburg

Baseball Betting Lines

06/28/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Nationals drafted Stephen Strasburg with the hopes that he could one day headline a rotation that would make Washington a contender in the National League East.

The 21-year-old phenom gets his first crack at division play this evening when the Nats visit the first-place Atlanta Braves for the opener of a three-game series at Turner Field.

Strasburg has gone 2-1 with a 1.78 earned run average over his first four starts, striking out 41 batters over 25 1/3 innings since making his debut on June 8 versus the Pirates. His last three starts have all come against American League opponents and the right-hander will be trying tonight to rebound from his first career loss.

Despite allowing just one earned run for a third straight outing, Strasburg suffered a 1-0 setback to the Royals on Wednesday. He allowed a career-high nine hits, but didn't walk a batter and struck out nine to pass former Cleveland hurler Herb Score for the most strikeouts through the first four starts of a big league career.

"For the most part, I went out there and threw strikes," said Strasburg, who threw 75 of his 95 pitches for strikes. "Couple mistakes by me. They really didn't hit the ball hard, except for a couple times they found holes, but that's baseball."

The Nationals hope that the San Diego State product can go deep into this contest after Washington blew leads in all three games of its weekend series with Baltimore. The Orioles recorded the winning run in Sunday's 4-3 contest on Miguel Tejada's two-out single in the eighth inning that handed Nats reliever Tyler Clippard his second loss in as many days.

"It feels devastating," Clippard said of the three losses. "We're battling our butts off, we're playing good but we're coming up short and it's not fun."

Washington, which got a two-run homer by Roger Bernadina, has lost four straight and 12 of its last 15 to fall 11 games back of the Braves in the NL East.

The Nats have also lost 20 of their last 24 road contests and tonight face a team with the best home record in baseball. The Braves are 26-8 at Turner Field this year despite Sunday's 10-4 loss to the Tigers that halted the club's seven-game home winning streak.

Troy Glaus and Brian McCann notched RBI doubles for the Braves, who have lost four of their last six and lead the Mets by just a half-game for the top spot in the NL East. Starter Tommy Hanson lasted just 3 2/3 innings, yielding six runs -- five earned -- on eight hits.

"I felt pretty good until that fourth inning," Hanson said. "The wheels just came off. Just a frustrating inning."

Atlanta rookie Jason Heyward did not play on Sunday due to a left thumb injury and he is slated to have an MRI today. He is batting .251 this year with 11 homers and 45 RBI, but his hitting just .172 over his last 25 games.

While the Nationals are turning to their young star, the Braves counter with a veteran in Tim Hudson, who is an outstanding 7-3 this year with a 2.54 ERA. The 34-year-old, though, allowed more than three earned runs for the first time this year in Wednesday's loss to the White Sox, getting charged with four runs on six hits and three walks over seven innings of a 4-2 setback.

Hudson, who has pitched at least seven innings in each of his last four starts, is 4-1 with a 1.87 ERA in five home starts this season and has won his last seven decisions versus the Nats franchise since his lone loss to them on June 5, 2006.

In 14 career starts against them, the right-hander is 8-1 with a 1.62 ERA and got a no-decision in a May 6 meeting that saw him allow two runs over seven frames of work.

Atlanta lost two of three in that set at Washington, and the Nationals have won six of the last seven matchups between the two clubs.

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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.”

To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds.

MySportsbook.com week 1 NFL lines


Now that the 2008 NFL schedule is finally out, it is only matter-of-course for lines on “Week 1” to follow.  Of course MySportsbook.com is the first to churn out odds for the NFL’s inaugural week for the upcoming season.   Expect a lot of fireworks the first Thursday night of the season as the defending champion Indianapolis Colts face off against the surprise of the 2008 season, the New Orleans Saints.  These teams were ranked #1 and #3 in the NFL respectively a season ago so a high scoring affair could be in order.  As of now, the Colts will be giving 6 points to the Saints; keep in mind the Saints were one of the better road teams last season going 6-3 SU and 7-2 ATS.  The first Monday night of the season will again provide a “double feature”. Coming off a disappointing season, the Cincinnati Bengals will look to get back to playoffs and improve their public image as they take on the AFC North favorite Baltimore Ravens.  The second game features a couple of teams that haven’t had too much success recently but each could make some noise if the NFC is as weak as it was last year as the San Francisco 49ers host the Arizona Cardinals. The most interesting game of the opening week will feature the NFC champion Bears as they hit the road to take on the NFL’s top team during last year’s regular season, the San Diego Chargers.

MySportsbook.com Week 1 odds:

Saints +6 @ Colts -6

Falcons @ Vikings (pick ‘em)

Panthers @ Rams (pick ‘em)

Broncos -3.5 @ Bills +3.5

Chiefs -1 @ Texans +1

Dolphins +3 @ Redskins -3

Patriots -5 @ Jets +5

Eagles -3.5 @ Packers +3.5

Steelers -4 @ Browns +4

Titans +6 @ Jaguars -6

Bears +6 @ Chargers -6

Lions +3 @ Raiders -3

Bucs +6.5 @ Seahawks -6.5

Giants +4 @ Cowboys -4

Ravens +3 @ Bengals -3

Cardinals +3 @ 49ers -3

 Super Bowl line (2008)

NFC +6.5 vs. AFC -6.5

MySportsbook is a large, publicly traded company with strong financial backing. You will find their customer service is second to none and their web site is extremely user friendly and easy-to-use. All major professional sports games are available. Once you signup with MySportsbook, you may never use another online sportsbook again.

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your football sportsbook needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.