Angels' home run parade leads to rout of Yankees

Baseball Betting Lines

07/20/2010 - Bronx, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Mike Napoli, Maicer Izturis and former Yankee Hideki Matsui each hit a two-run homer to lead the Angels to a 10-2 win over New York at Yankee Stadium.

Napoli finished with four RBI for the Angels, who captured the opener of this brief two-game set and have won four of their last five games overall.

Sean O'Sullivan was recalled from Triple-A Salt Lake late Monday and pitched six strong innings. O'Sullivan (1-0) replaced Scott Kazmir, who was placed on the 15-day disabled list due to a strained left shoulder, and allowed two runs on two hits with four strikeouts to earn the win.

Phil Hughes (11-3) suffered the loss after he yielded six runs on nine hits in five-plus innings for the Yankees, who lost for only the fourth time in the month of July (11-4).

Nick Swisher hit his 17th home run of the season in the losing effort.

The Yankees grabbed an early lead with a pair of runs in the first inning. After Swisher's one-out solo homer, Mark Teixeira drew a walk and moved to third on a double by Alex Rodriguez. Robinson Cano then walked to load the bases and a groundout to the right side of the infield by Jorge Posada allowed Teixeira to cross the plate.

An RBI single by Izturis in the top of the second cut the Angels' deficit in half, and another RBI base hit -- this one off the bat off Torii Hunter -- in the third knotted the score.

In the top of the fourth, Juan Rivera laced a one-out single before Izturis stepped to the plate and belted his third home run of the season over the wall in right field.

In the sixth, Napoli turned on a Hughes fastball and blasted it over the right-field wall. The two-run shot also scored Matsui, who led off the frame with a walk.

New York manager Joe Girardi was ejected in the bottom of the sixth because he argued with umpires after Teixeira was called out on a close play at first base.

The Angels gained a bit of insurance in the seventh. Hunter drew a two-out walk and Chan Ho Park entered from the New York bullpen. Matsui greeted him with a home run to right field for an 8-2 advantage.

Los Angeles reliever Scot Shields worked around a first-and-third situation by inducing an inning-ending groundout off the bat of Brett Gardner in the seventh and Francisco Rodriguez did the same in the eighth. With runners on the corners and two outs, Rodriguez got Cano to fly out to left field.

A two-run single by Napoli in the top of the ninth capped the scoring.

Game Notes

Hughes is now 3-1 lifetime against the Angels (four starts)...The Angels outhit the Yanks, 14-6...New York was 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position...Swisher now has 54 RBI in 2010...Angels outfielder Bobby Abreu was thrown out twice trying to steal by Posada.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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