Richard, Padres resume series vs. D'Backs

Baseball Betting Lines

07/17/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Clayton Richard was bailed out by his offense the last time he took the mound. The San Diego Padres hope that Richard won't need the help when he gets the nod tonight in the second installment of a three-game series versus the Arizona Diamondbacks at Petco Park.

Richard was on the hill in Sunday's 9-7 victory and luckily did not post a decision after getting rocked for six runs on six hits and three walks over 5 2/3 innings. He remained at 6-4 in 18 starts and saw his earned run average go from 3.00 to 3.33.

The left-hander, who is 2-0 in his last four starts with back-to-back no- decisions, has never faced Arizona in his career. Richard hopes his first appearance in this series will push his home record over the .500 mark. He is 3-3 with a 3.02 ERA in 10 starts on the Petco Park mound.

San Diego will try to make sure it won't have a drought in run scoring after posting a 12-1 beating of the D'Backs last night, as Chase Headley finished 3- for-4 with a home run and runs scored to lead the way. Adrian Gonzalez hit a two-run homer for the National League West-leading Padres, who are three games ahead Colorado and 3 1/2 games in front of both Los Angeles and San Francisco in the division standings.

Jon Garland gave up just one run in six innings to take the win. He allowed three hits, walked two and struck out five.

"I was able to throw all the pitches for strikes," Garland said on the team's site. "That first inning, it just seemed like every guy was on every pitch and putting it in play [and] the pitch count was getting up there. But after that, I started getting ahead of guys, making the pitches I wanted to make and kept them off balance."

The Padres have won two straight and six of their last 10 games.

Arizona, however, has lost eight of its last nine games and looked awful in last night's beat down. Kelly Johnson had two of the D'Backs' four hits and Justin Upton doubled in the only run in defeat.

Diamondbacks starter Dan Haren continued to struggle and fell to 7-8 this season after yielding six runs and eight hits in five innings. Blaine Boyer gave up two runs and Jordan Norberto was reached for three in relief.

"Not a good way to start the second half," Haren said on Arizona's official website. "Hopefully we can bounce back."

Taking the hill for the D'Backs tonight will be Rodrigo Lopez, who is 3-1 with a 3.28 ERA in his last four starts. Lopez last pitched in a 10-4 rout of the Florida Marlins on July 8 and allowed four runs -- three earned -- on five hits through seven innings of work.

Lopez, who improved to 5-7 in 18 starts and lowered his ERA to 4.40, will face the Padres for the second time in his career. The right-hander was a member of the Baltimore Orioles the first and only time he pitched against San Diego back on June 12, 2002 in a 2-0 loss. Lopez went the distance that day but was dealt the loss for allowing both runs and five hits with five K's.

San Diego has won five of seven meetings with Arizona this season and seven of the previous 11 contests between the NL West foes.

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

NFL Betting Lines

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