Angels attempt to pin eighth straight loss on Mariners

Baseball Betting Lines

05/08/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The struggling Seattle Mariners will try to snap out of their rut tonight as they host the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the middle bout of a three-game set at Safeco Field.

After last night's 8-0 setback to the Angels, Seattle is now 0-7 on a current nine-game homestand. The Mariners have been outscored 40-9 over that span and are hitting just .169 during their longest slide since dropping 12 straight from September 11-22, 2008.

Felix Hernandez (2-3) had one of his worst starts as a professional last night, with the Mariners ace tying a career worst by allowing seven earned runs while lasting only 3 1/3 innings. He also matched a career worst by giving up three homers, all of which came in the fourth inning.

"You can look at his mechanics and they're a little bit out of whack, more than I've seen them in a long time," Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu said of Hernandez. "Especially [allowing] four walks and giving up the home runs. It's just uncharacteristic. The ballgame was over pretty quick with the eight runs up, especially the way [Seattle's] offense has been going."

Hernandez now has a three-start losing streak for the first time since a four- start stretch of defeats from April 27-May 13, 2008. In total, he gave up eight runs, five hits and walked four on Friday.

The Angels, meanwhile, watched Jered Weaver toss 7 1/3 shutout innings of two- hit ball to snap a seven-game slide. Weaver (4-1) held a no-hitter for 6 2/3 frames and walked three batters while fanning seven in the win. The lanky righty saw his season earned run average dip to 2.66 while improving to 9-3 lifetime versus the Mariners.

"I wasn't really worried about it," said Weaver of the no-hit bid. "I was just trying to limit the baserunners and just stick to my game plan."

Juan Rivera, Howie Kendrick and Ryan Budde all homered off Hernandez in the fourth inning, helping the Angels avoid what would have been the first eight- game losing streak since manager Mike Scioscia took over the team in 2000. Kendry Morales added a three-run double in the top of the first.

Joe Saunders hopes to receive the same kind of support tonight as he toes the rubber seeking to end a personal three-game slide. The left-hander is also looking to rebound from his worst performance of the season, when he allowed seven earned runs over just four innings of a 17-8 loss at Boston on Monday.

In his career against Seattle, Saunders has had great success, posting a 7-1 ledger with a 3.19 ERA in 10 lifetime starts. He is also a perfect 5-0 with a 2.55 ERA in six starts at Safeco.

For the Mariners, they will send Doug Fister to the hill and hope he can add to his surprising start. Fister has allowed just two runs in 16 innings over his last two outings, but failed to earn a decision in either. On Sunday, the right-hander tossed eight scoreless innings and allowed only three hits. The Mariners, however, came up short in a 3-1 verdict against Texas.

Fister made his lone career start against the Angels last season, picking up the victory after allowing just one run over 7 1/3 innings of work.

Los Angeles went 10-9 against the Mariners last season and has won four straight and six of the last eight matchups between the clubs. These two teams split 10 meetings at Safeco Field a season ago.

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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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Barry Bonds Watch: Giants Slugger Says He'll Be Back

With only 21 home runs standing between him and Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds is indeed planning on coming back for more in 2007. At least, that's what his agent told the Los Angeles Times.

"Barry's going to play in 2007," Jeff Borris of Beverly Hills Sports Council told the Times on Tuesday. "I've had many discussions with Barry and he's going to play. My intentions are to see to it he's in a big-league uniform next season. Those are my marching orders."

Contract negotiations could get started as early as next week. Let's see which team has the deeper pockets. Will MLB baseball betting lines despite allegations of steroid use? Bet On It at www.MySportsbook.com .

Get all your baseball betting lines, MLB lines and MLB team props at the My Sportbook.

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