Football Betting

Brewers aim to extend Mets' recent misery

Baseball Betting Lines

06/30/2009 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - While the Milwaukee Brewers are improving their stance in the National League Central, they're making it very difficult for the New York Mets to climb the NL East standings.

The NL Central-leading Brewers will resume a three-game series versus the Mets tonight at Miller Park and are coming off Monday's 10-6 win in the series opener. J.J. Hardy went 4-for-4 with a solo home run and Casey McGehee added a grand slam to break open the game in the sixth inning for Milwaukee, which moved a game ahead of St. Louis in the Central after the Cardinals lost to San Francisco Monday night.

"When I can be a little more removed from the situation, that is going to be something I always remember as really special," McGehee said on the team's site. "If someone would have told me this time last year that I was going to have 40,000 people calling me out of the dugout for a curtain call, I would have said you were lying."

McGehee made up for missing an easy pop fly to end the sixth inning, with his miscue allowing the Mets to score a pair of unearned runs. His first career grand slam then made a winner out of Braden Looper, who gave up three runs -- one earned -- in 6 1/3 innings. Carlos Villanueva was roughed up for three runs and five hits in only one-third of an inning, but closer Trevor Hoffman came to the rescue by getting the next two outs for his 18th save.

Milwaukee improved to 4-3 on a nine-game homestand and has won three of its last four games.

Brewers pitcher Mike Burns made his first major league start his last time out and will take another shot tonight versus the Mets. Burns was roughed up for four runs and six hits in 5 2/3 innings of a 6-4 setback to Minnesota on Thursday to absorb the loss. He fell to 0-1 with a 3.72 ERA in two games (one start) this season.

The right-hander faced the Mets for the first and only time on June 22, 2006 at Shea Stadium, and did not factor in the outcome of a 6-2 setback. Burns was a member of Cincinnati at the time and yielded two hits in two shutout innings.

New York has been struggling and is caught in a funk, having lost four straight and nine of the last 13 games to fall below the .500 mark at 37-38. In Monday's four-run loss in the opener of this set and a seven-game road trip, starter Fernando Nieve suffered his first loss of the season after permitting three runs and 11 hits over 3 1/3 innings of work.

"I didn't have my stuff like I usually had before," Nieve stated on the team's Web site. "My fastball wasn't as good as it was before. I started getting behind on guys and they were pretty aggressive."

Gary Sheffield finished with three hits, including a home run, and three RBI, while Ryan Church added four hits and Brian Schneider knocked in a pair of runs for the Mets, whose rally in the ninth produced three runs before falling short after Hoffman took the hill.

New York is three games behind the Philadelphia Phillies for the NL East lead, but the Florida Marlins are second at 2 1/2 games off the pace. The Mets will visit Philadelphia for three games starting Friday.

Mets ace Johan Santana gets the nod for Jerry Manuel's ballclub tonight and he is coming off a strong performance versus St. Louis on Thursday. Santana was 1-3 with a 7.33 ERA in four starts before beating the Cardinals with seven strong innings on the mound. He allowed two runs -- one earned -- in a 3-2 victory at Citi Field to improve to 9-5 in 15 starts this season and lower his earned run average from 3.22 to 3.08.

The two-time Cy Young Award winner, who is 3-3 in six road starts this season, will square off with Milwaukee for the second time in 2009. Santana earned a 1-0 win over the Brewers on April 18, as he surrendered five hits with seven strikeouts and no walks through seven shutout frames. The lefty is 4-2 with a 3.13 ERA in 12 career games (8 starts) against the Brewers.

New York took two of three meetings versus Milwaukee from April 17-19 at Citi Field and has won eight of the past 12 matchups between the teams.

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Betting Football

NFL Football Betting Online

Is there such a thing as a trap game in the NFL?

I once asked that question to Pete Korner, who at the time was office manager and a senior linesmaker for Las Vegas Sports Consultants.

Korner almost ripped my head off. There is no such thing as a trap game, he loudly berated me. It’s a myth. The numbers are made using power ratings, he said.

There are trap games, though. They just might not be what you think. The perception is of a good team, say Philadelphia, laying a small number against New Orleans.

Using the highly-respected power ranking from The Gold Sheet, you’d find the Eagles with a power rating of 4 and the Saints at 8. When you factor the game being played in New Orleans, you could see why the line opened so short at less than a field goal.

For some, this makes it enticing to take the Eagles. That’s not a real trap game, though.

A real trap game, says professional gambler Dave Malinsky, is thinking you’re getting value betting a bad team, which brings us to the Oakland Raiders-Denver Broncos matchup.

The Raiders are +15 in this long-standing division rivalry. Denver is on a short week having dispatched Baltimore Monday. However, the Raiders haven’t covered the spread their last 10 games.

Many bettors don’t trust the Raiders to give a full effort. Few think much of Art Shell and his Oakland’s coaching staff.

So oddsmakers have to do something to make Oakland attractive if they hope to get equal action.

Now Malinsky is a value shopper. But he won’t touch the Raiders even getting more than two touchdowns.

“I try to eliminate the undisciplined, unfocused teams because they’re the ones most likely to suffer the bad beats,” he said.

Near the top of Malinsky’s list of stay-away teams is the Miami Dolphins, who have yet to cover a spread this season.

“Whatever you think of Nick Saban, you have to look at the penalties and turnovers,” Malinsky said.

It’s easy to point out the Dolphins failed to get the money this past week against New England because Olindo Mare missed a field goal and had another field goal blocked. But even though the Dolphins outgained the Patriots, 283-213, they committed eight penalties.

Bad teams not only cost themselves victories, but pointspread covers as well. The Arizona Cardinals and Green Bay Packers are two more examples.

The Cardinals couldn’t have been in a better position this past Sunday, up 14-0 at home against a mediocre Kansas City Chiefs squad. But they couldn’t hold it. The Packers got a push against St. Louis, but also could have won losing by three when Brett Favre fumbled at the St. Louis 11-yard line with 44 seconds left.

“The Packers were in a position to beat Philadelphia, too,” Malinsky said. “But they couldn’t even cover double digits.

“These teams just make mistakes and it costs you … they always will look good from a value standpoint. They really will. But that’s the trap.”

Houston and Tennessee rank among the six-worst teams. Malinsky wouldn’t be afraid to take either of these teams, however, if the price were high enough.

The Texans are bad, Malinsky said, but they have some discipline. The Titans showed they could not only come up with an outstanding game plan, but execute it as well, losing by one to the Colts on the road as an 18 ?-point underdog this past Sunday.

“Jeff Fisher is a worker,” Malinsky said of the Titans coach. “I’m not sure how hard Art Shell wants to work when he gets out of bed.”

Fisher, though, could be out as Tennessee coach after this season. Is he still worth backing in the right spot, with the right price, as a lame duck coach?

“It’s in his nature to keep working hard and not worry about any possible lame duck status,” Malinsky said. “He’s coaching for his resume.”

Note: Monday night game will be picked Monday. Lines used are from football betting lines.