Halladay, Wang square off in Bronx

Baseball Betting Lines

07/04/2009 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - In his second start since coming off the disabled list, Roy Halladay will take the mound for the Blue Jays when Toronto takes on the New York Yankees in the second matchup of a four-game stint at Yankee Stadium.

The strong right-hander suffered his second loss of the season in his last start, allowing two runs in six innings against Tampa Bay. However, despite the setback, Halladay has been one of the top pitchers in all of baseball and is currently 10-2 on the season with an outstanding 2.56 ERA.

The Yankees are very familiar with Toronto's ace, however, the team has not enjoyed much success against him, as Halladay has posted a 16-5 ledger with a 2.79 earned run average in 33 appearances against the Bronx Bombers.

As for the Yankees they will turn to Chien-Ming Wang, who has been brutal throughout most of the season. Wang has just one victory in his last 10 appearances, and on the season the right-hander is just 1-6 with an astronomical 10.06 earned run average.

His lone victory came in his last start, as the Taiwanese native led New York to a 4-2 victory over its NL counterpart, the New York Mets. Wang tossed 5 1/3 innings against the Mets, surrendering just two runs on four hits.

Wang has made nine career starts against the Blue Jays, and has a 4-2 record with a 4.63 ERA.

Yesterday, Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez each homered as New York doubled up Toronto, 4-2. Mark Teixeira added a hit and an RBI for the Yankees, who have won eight of their last nine.

A.J. Burnett (7-4), facing his former club for the second time in 2009, went seven innings for the win, scattering six hits and two runs, fanning seven with a pair of walks.

"I made just one mistake the whole game," said Burnett. "Everything went well mechanically and as long as I can keep the ball away from the hitters things will go well."

Mariano Rivera recorded the final three outs to earn his 21st save.

Vernon Wells collected two hits including a homer and Alex Rios drove in the other run for the Blue Jays, who have dropped six of eight.

Brian Tallet (5-6) lasted six innings in the loss, charged with six hits and three runs -- two earned -- with four walks and three strikeouts.

"Both guys pitched great," said Toronto manager Cito Gaston. "The walks won the game for them and A-Rod hit a big home run for them. I think both teams hit the ball the same way, but they came out on top."

The Yankees won two of three matchups in Toronto from May 12-14 and have won five of the seven most recent meetings between the teams.

Today, of course is the 70th anniversary of Lou Gehrig's "Luckiest Man" speech and the Yankees will honor one of their greatest players with a video tribute that includes current players reciting portions of his speech, as well as wearing a "4ALS" patch and the No. 4 will be on first base.

The Yankees also will contribute $25,000 to the ALS Association of Greater New York.

BC-AAN;PREVIEW-TOR-NYY

=== Halladay, Wang square off in Bronx ===

(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - In his second start since coming off the disabled list, Roy Halladay will take the mound for the Blue Jays when Toronto takes on the New York Yankees in the second matchup of a four-game stint at Yankee Stadium.

The strong right-hander suffered his second loss of the season in his last start, allowing two runs in six innings against Tampa Bay. However, despite the setback, Halladay has been one of the top pitchers in all of baseball and is currently 10-2 on the season with an outstanding 2.56 ERA.

The Yankees are very familiar with Toronto's ace, however, the team has not enjoyed much success against him, as Halladay has posted a 16-5 ledger with a 2.79 earned run average in 33 appearances against the Bronx Bombers.

As for the Yankees they will turn to Chien-Ming Wang, who has been brutal throughout most of the season. Wang has just one victory in his last 10 appearances, and on the season the right-hander is just 1-6 with an astronomical 10.06 earned run average.

His lone victory came in his last start, as the Taiwanese native led New York to a 4-2 victory over its NL counterpart, the New York Mets. Wang tossed 5 1/3 innings against the Mets, surrendering just two runs on four hits.

Wang has made nine career starts against the Blue Jays, and has a 4-2 record with a 4.63 ERA.

Yesterday, Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez each homered as New York doubled up Toronto, 4-2. Mark Teixeira added a hit and an RBI for the Yankees, who have won eight of their last nine.

A.J. Burnett (7-4), facing his former club for the second time in 2009, went seven innings for the win, scattering six hits and two runs, fanning seven with a pair of walks.

"I made just one mistake the whole game," said Burnett. "Everything went well mechanically and as long as I can keep the ball away from the hitters things will go well."

Mariano Rivera recorded the final three outs to earn his 21st save.

Vernon Wells collected two hits including a homer and Alex Rios drove in the other run for the Blue Jays, who have dropped six of eight.

Brian Tallet (5-6) lasted six innings in the loss, charged with six hits and three runs -- two earned -- with four walks and three strikeouts.

"Both guys pitched great," said Toronto manager Cito Gaston. "The walks won the game for them and A-Rod hit a big home run for them. I think both teams hit the ball the same way, but they came out on top."

The Yankees won two of three matchups in Toronto from May 12-14 and have won five of the seven most recent meetings between the teams.

Today, of course is the 70th anniversary of Lou Gehrig's "Luckiest Man" speech a

The Yankees also will contribute $25,000 to the ALS Association of Greater New Y

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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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