Astros rally late, upend Cardinals

Baseball Betting Lines

08/02/2010 - St. Louis, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jeff Keppinger drove in four runs as Houston scored seven times in the final two innings to take a 9-4 win over St. Louis in the opener of a three-game set.

Chris Johnson drove in two runs while Hunter Pence and Carlos Lee each had two hits, two runs scored and an RBI for the Astros, who have won a season-high six straight games.

Brett Myers went six innings and was charged with three runs -- two earned -- on three hits with four walks and four strikeouts. He has now gone 22 consecutive starts of at least six innings, which is a Houston record to begin the season. Nelson Figueroa (3-1) was given the win for throwing the seventh inning.

Albert Pujols hit a solo home run while Felipe Lopez went 2-for-3 with an RBI and a run scored for the Cardinals, who had won three straight coming in.

Jake Westbrook went six innings in his Cardinals debut and was charged with two runs on four hits with a walk and seven strikeouts. Mike MacDougal (1-1) was saddled with the loss.

Trailing by two runs in the eighth, Houston surged ahead. With Jason Motte on the mound, Michael Bourn led off with a walk and stole second before Anderson Hernandez walked.

MacDougal then took the mound and got Pence to foul out, but Lee singled home Bourn and Keppinger followed with a double to tie the game. After Brett Wallace was intentionally walked, Johnson hit into a fielder's choice to give Houston a 5-4 lead. Humberto Quintero hit into a double play to end the inning.

Houston padded its lead in the ninth. With men on first and third, Pence punched a single to left that scored one and, two batters later, Keppinger belted a two-run single to center. After Wallace flied out, Johnson doubled off the wall in left to bring home one more for a 9-4 lead.

Matt Lindstrom worked around a leadoff single in the ninth to close out the victory.

St. Louis got on the board in the first as Lopez led off with a single, then came home when Myers and Bourn both committed throwing errors on Jon Jay's grounder back to the mound.

Houston took the lead in the fourth. Hernandez led off with a double and Pence followed with an infield single. After Lee struck out, Keppinger grounded out to allow Hernandez to score. Wallace then hit a single off of Westbrook and Pence came home for a 2-1 lead.

It was short-lived, though, as Pujols led off the bottom of the fourth with a shot over the left field wall. St. Louis put its next three men on base to for Skip Schumaker, who grounded into a double play for a 3-2 lead.

St. Louis got another run in the seventh, when Brendan Ryan singled with two outs and came home on Lopez's double.

Game Notes

On Sunday, the Astros and Myers agreed to a $21 million deal that runs through the 2011 and 2012 seasons and includes an option for 2013...Quintero celebrated his 31st birthday on Monday...Houston has taken six of the 10 games against St. Louis this season...Pujols has 26 home runs this season.

Wwmsnbc Baseball Betting News

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Matt Kenseth And Kevin Harvick Favorites To Take NASCAR Nextel Cup Championship

(September 15)—The NASCAR season has hit the homestretch with the opening event on this year’s Chase for the Cup taking place this weekend at the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway. With 10 races remaining to determine the Cup Series champion, leading online sportsbook MySportsbook.com today announced odds on all 10 Chase qualifying drivers capturing the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship.

One of the largest sportsbook sites on the Internet, MySportsbook.com currently lists the top two drivers in the point standings as the early favorites to win the Nextel Cup. Entering the Chase for the Cup with a slim five-point lead in the point standings, 2003 NASCAR champ Matt Kenseth has been made a slight favorite to win his second Cup at 7/2 betting odds. 2001 Cup Rookie of the Year Kevin Harvick has betting odds listed at 5/2 and four-time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon is listed at 6/1 to capture the Nextel Cup this year.

Hoping to follow in the footsteps of his legendary father who won six NASCAR titles, Dale Earnhardt Jr. stands at 8/1 to breakthrough with his first Cup victory. Staying with the family theme, MySportsbook.com lists 2005 Rookie of the Year Kyle Busch at 14/1 to succeed big brother Kurt’s 2004 NASCAR title. While Kasey Kahne was the final driver to qualify for the Chase with a third place finish last week, the oddsmakers give him a fighting chance at 10/1 mainly due to several mile-and-a-half tracks remaining on the schedule. Despite going winless on the NASCAR circuit this season, Jeff Burton enters the Chase at 5/1 to capture the Cup title. Meanwhile, rookie Denny Hamlin is 4/1 to win the championship, while veteran driver Mark Martin enters the Chase for the Cup as a 15/1 long shot to win his first NASCAR title in his 24th and final season.

MySportsbook.com will offer comprehensive Nascar betting lines on every race remaining on the Nextel Cup series including driver match-ups, props and odds to win each race. For a complete list of NASCAR odds, please visit www.MySportsbook.com.

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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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