Blue Jays try to add to Orioles' misery

Baseball Betting Lines

07/28/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jose Bautista may still not be a familiar name among many baseball fans, but the Baltimore Orioles know all too well how good the Toronto Blue Jays slugger has been this season.

The major league's leading home run hitter in 2010 will attempt to go deep for a fourth straight game tonight, while Bautista's Blue Jays take aim at yet another victory over the cellar-dwelling Orioles when the American League East foes wrap up a three-game series at the Rogers Centre.

Toronto moved to an astounding 11-0 against the Orioles this season by virtue of last night's 8-2 triumph, with Bautista homering twice and knocking in five runs as part of a 4-for-4 performance at the plate. The two long balls give the All-Star outfielder 30 on the season, and he's homered four times with nine RBI over the Jays' last three contests.

"Nothing different in my swing, just my approach has changed a little bit," said Bautista about his recent success. "I'm starting to get ready a little earlier in the at-bat."

Facing the Orioles has helped Bautista build his career-best numbers as well. In Toronto's 11 victories over Baltimore this season, the 29-year-old has hit .326 (14-for-43) with six homers and 15 RBI.

Vernon Wells chipped in a two-run double and both Fred Lewis and Yunel Escobar collected three hits to help Toronto prevail for the fourth time in its last five games overall. Starting pitcher Ricky Romero (8-7) turned in 7 2/3 effective innings as well, holding the O's to two runs and striking out eight Baltimore hitters.

Kevin Millwood wasn't nearly as effective for Baltimore, with the struggling veteran battered for six runs (five earned) on 10 hits over a 5 1/3-inning stint.

"I just didn't make very many good pitches and when you are swinging the bat as well as [Bautista] is, if you don't throw a good pitch, he's going to hit it hard," Millwood said.

Adam Jones went 3-for-4 for Baltimore, losers of four in a row and 10 of 12 since the All-Star break, while Nick Markakis had two hits and drove in a run.

Tuesday's setback was also the Orioles' 10th in a row at the Rogers Centre, where Baltimore has now lost in 15 of its last 16 visits.

With the Blue Jays in need of an extra starter due to having played a doubleheader on Sunday, the team will call up Brad Mills from Triple-A Las Vegas to pitch tonight's finale. The 25-year-old lefty made 16 starts for the 51s this season and compiled a 7-4 record with a 4.13 earned run average.

A fourth-round selection by Toronto in the 2007 draft, Mills did make a pair of starts for the Blue Jays last season, with both coming against the Philadelphia Phillies. The results weren't real good, as he was tagged for 12 runs and 14 hits -- including four homers -- over a 7 2/3-inning span while registering a loss and a no-decision.

He'll be opposed tonight by Jeremy Guthrie in what possibly could be the Baltimore hurler's final outing as an Oriole. Considered a potential candidate to be dealt prior to Saturday's trade deadline, the right-hander has helped his value with a pair of solid performances since the All-Star break.

One of those efforts came against the Blue Jays, with Guthrie limiting the Jays to a run and striking out six in a 6 2/3-inning no-decision on July 17. The 31-year-old followed up by yielding just two runs through seven frames to defeat Minnesota on Friday, finally putting an end to a personal two-month winless streak.

The former first-round pick was handed a loss at the Rogers Centre back on May 30 after being reached for four runs in six innings, and is just 2-5 with a 3.56 ERA in 13 career starts versus Toronto. Guthrie also has struggled on the road during his trying 2010 campaign, having produced a 1-5 record with a 5.01 ERA in 10 away appearances.

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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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