Lilly tosses two-hitter as Dodgers take rubber match against Rox

Baseball Betting Lines

08/20/2010 - Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ted Lilly's two-hit shutout and Reed Johnson's two-run homer lifted the Dodgers over the Rockies, 2-0, in the rubber match of their three-game series.

Lilly (7-8) struck out 11 and walked a pair en route to his third career shutout and first since 2004. The veteran lefty has been a revelation since coming over in a trade with the Cubs, winning each of his four starts with Los Angeles while pitching to a 1.29 earned run average.

LA has won 10 straight series against the Rockies and has shut them out in three of their last four games at Chavez Ravine. Colorado has alternated wins and losses in each of its 16 games in August.

Jorge De La Rosa (4-4) was the hard-luck loser, yielding five hits and four walks over a seven-inning start, his lone error being a hanging changeup in the second inning that Johnson drove into the left-field bleachers.

"The job De La Rosa did was terrific," Rockies manager Jim Tracy said. "He gave us a chance to win. He paid for one pitch up in the zone to Reed Johnson. We just couldn't hit."

That homer, which was a two-run shot thanks to Casey Blake working a walk ahead of the blast, was all Lilly needed, as his lone blemish in the first seven frames was Dexter Fowler's one-out double in the opening frame.

Lilly set down 19 straight from there, shook off Troy Tulowitzki's two-out single in the seventh and retired three in a row after walking Todd Helton to open the eighth.

Facing the top of Colorado's order in the ninth, Lilly walked Eric Young Jr. before getting Fowler to bounce into a tailor-made 4-6-3 double play.

Fittingly, the 34-year-old froze Ryan Spilborghs on an 0-2 sinker to finish off his masterpiece.

"There was not much room for error tonight," Lilly said. "I couldn't lose focus against a good team like that. I don't get the opportunity to finish very often, so I tried to make the most of it."

Game Notes

Lilly, who needed 110 pitches to notch his fifth career complete game, had three wins in 18 starts with Chicago this year. His last shutout came on August 23, 2004 against Boston while he was pitching for Toronto...Johnson's homer was his first since June 19, 2009...Rockies catcher Miguel Olivo was ejected by home-plate umpire Laz Diaz in the eighth inning after he slammed his bat following a called third strike...Ryan Theriot had two of LA's five hits...Before the game, Colorado released outfielder Brad Hawpe, who has spent his entire seven-year career with the club...LA also made a roster move, placing pitcher Vicente Padilla on the 15-day disabled list with a neck injury.

Webmiilion Baseball Betting News

<< Reds sweep Diamondbacks for sixth straight win
Phoenix, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Travis Wood pitched 6 1/3 solid frames and the red-hot Reds kept rolling, bringing out the brooms in a 9-5 pounding of Arizona. The southpaw Wood (4-1) was solid if not spectacular, giving up one ru

<< Cahill stars as Athletics edge Rays
Oakland, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Cliff Pennington's two-run double in the bottom of the sixth was the difference, as the Oakland Athletics edged Tampa Bay, 4-3, in the opener of a four-game series at the Coliseum. Kurt Suzuki and Rajai D

<< Clijsters, Wozniacki into QFs; Dementieva upended in Montreal
Montreal, QC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - U.S. Open champion Kim Clijsters was an easy third-round victor, while defending Rogers Cup champ Elena Dementieva was an upset victim Thursday at this $2 million Canadian event, a U.S. Open tune-up. The

<< Indians overcome five errors to defeat Royals in KC
Kansas City, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Travis Hafner's infield single drove home the final run in a five-run eighth inning, as the Cleveland Indians overcame shoddy defense to rally past Kansas City, 7-3, in the finale of a three-game series

<< Raiders QB Frye headed to IR
Napa Valley, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Oakland Raiders are expected to place quarterback Charlie Frye on injured reserve, forcing him to miss the entire 2010 season. Frye underwent surgery on his right wrist on Wednesday and is expected

Astros place Keppinger on DL >>
Houston, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Houston Astros placed infielder Jeff Keppinger on the 15-day disabled list with an injured big left toe. Keppinger has been sidelined since Tuesday with the injury. He is batting .285 with five hom

Ex-NBA star Jayson Williams to face NYC DWI case >>
NEW YORK (AP) - Jayson Williams is already in prison for accidentally killing a limo driver, but the former NBA star still is contending with another criminal case.He has a court date Friday in New York City for a drunken-driving case stemming from

Ga. State starts new program in tough economy >>
ATLANTA (AP) -In his previous head coaching jobs, there were plenty of things for Bill Curry to worry about.Who's going to play quarterback? How does the defense look? Will these Alabama fans ever fully accept me?There were other issues that never c

Kingston titles at Selborne Golf Club >>
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - James Kingston managed an even- par 72 on Friday to win the Vodacom Business Origins of Golf tournament at Selborne Golf Club. He won the championship by two strokes at 13-under 203. Adil

Giants add former Eagle lineman >>
East Rutherford, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The New York Giants have signed offensive lineman Shawn Andrews, who was a two-time Pro Bowl selection with the Philadelphia Eagles. Andrews missed the entire 2009 season and played just

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.”

To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds.