A-Rod hopes for another milestone against Kyle Davies

Baseball Betting Lines

07/24/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Alex Rodriguez continues his quest to become the youngest player to 600 home runs this afternoon when the New York Yankees resume their four-game series with the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium.

On Saturday, Rodriguez is hoping history repeats itself, as he will face the pitcher who served up his 500th home run nearly three years ago in Kyle Davies.

"To me, it's another ballgame. I want to continue the path I've been on," Davies said. "If he hits 600, so be it. As long as we win the game."

Rodriguez should easily become the youngest player to reach the milestone. Babe Ruth hit his 600th at age 36, while Rodriguez does not turn 35 until July 27.

Ruth may have reached the milestone quicker, hitting No. 600 in his 6,921st at-bat, but Rodriguez's pace (8,646 at-bats entering play Saturday) trails only that of Barry Bonds (8,212) and eclipses Willie Mays (9,514) and Henry Aaron (10,009).

Davies, meanwhile, is looking for his first win since defeating Boston back on May 28. He has gone 0-3 in his last eight outings.

The last time the Georgia native was on the hill he allowed three runs on 10 hits in seven innings of work against Toronto. Kansas City eventually defeated the Blue Jays in that contest, 5-4, but Davies did not factor in the decision.

This will be the third career start for Davies against the Yankees and even though the veteran hurler is 1-0 in his previous two starts, he still possesses a lackluster 5.59 earned run average against the Bronx Bombers.

Last night, Robinson Cano went 2-for-4 with a three-run double in the first inning, as the New York Yankees roughed up the Kansas City Royals, 7-1, in the second installment of a four-game series. Brett Gardner added two hits and two RBI for the Yankees, who have won three in a row.

Rodriguez finished 2-for-4. While Rodriguez did not homer, there was a milestone, as Jorge Posada recorded the 1,000th RBI of his career.

A.J. Burnett (8-8) pitched five shutout innings before a lengthy rain delay forced both teams to change pitchers. Chad Gaudin allowed a run in three relief innings after the game resumed.

Royals starter Brian Bannister (7-9) gave up four runs on six hits and two walks in 4 2/3 innings and took the loss, Kansas City's ninth in its last 11 games.

Bannister entered the game with a 15.07 ERA in four career starts against the Yankees, and continued to struggle in the first inning.

The Yankees will turn to Sergio Mitre, who will be activated from the disabled list to start in place of the injured Andy Pettitte.

Mitre landed on the DL back on June 5th when he strained his oblique, but before suffering the injury the right-hander pulled double duty for the Yankees, working as a reliever and a starter. However, his last start came way back on May 16th.

Mitre has tossed just 11 1/3 innings in front of a home crowd this season and in that time he has surrendered four runs on seven hits, while walking four batters and striking out five.

Against the Royals in his career the California native has made just two appearance, but neither went well and in seven total innings against KC, the veteran hurler has surrendered six runs on 13 hits.

Thursday's victory improved the Yankees to 16-4 against the Royals at home since the start of the 2006 season. New York has won 27 of the 36 meetings between the clubs over that time period.

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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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