Hits Leaves Kennedy Of A

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Ready to take the hill for the visiting Diamondbacks this afternoon is Ian Kennedy who has emerged as one of the surprise hurlers in the NL for the first half of the season. Kennedy, who is in his second season with Arizona and his fifth in the majors overall, is sporting an impressive 8-2 record in 2011 after putting up a 9-10 mark a year ago.

 

As for the A's, they are giving the ball to lefty Gio Gonzalez this time around. Gonzalez, who like Kennedy is facing the opposition today for the first time in his career, picked up his seventh win of the season on Tuesday as he held the Florida Marlins to just a single hit and three walks, while striking out nine through eight innings of a 1-0 decision.

 

(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Locked in a tie for first place in the National League Central with the St. Louis Cardinals, the Milwaukee Brewers try to separate themselves by closing out their three-game interleague set against the Minnesota Twins on a positive note this afternoon at Target Field. The Brewers are actually lucky to be in this position at the moment, given that they squeezed by Minnesota in an 8-7 final yesterday in order to halt a four-game slide. It also doesn't help that a team with an amazing 29-11 record at home thus far has posted a mere 16-28 mark on the road.

 

Nyjer Morgan finished up 3-for-5 with a home run, double, triple and four RBI, and scored the winning run for the Brewers in a four-run ninth inning on Saturday to give the visitors the hard-fought win. Pinch-hitter George Kottaras plated the game-winning run, while Jonathan Lucroy went 2-for-4 with a pair of RBI for Milwaukee in the triumph as well.

 

Fielder continues to lead the NL in RBI with 69 and is tied for second in the league with 21 home runs, yet he's delivered just one long ball in his last 10 games and only one RBI in the last five.

 

Danny Valencia put up three hits and plated three for the hosts as he hit his ninth home run of the campaign. The subject of trade talks of late, Michael Cuddyer added his 11th home run and scored twice in the setback.

 

The eight-year veteran was stomped on Tuesday by New York as the Yankees recorded seven runs on just five hits and three walks in two innings. Greinke, who surrendered eight runs, yet struck out 10 in 5 1/3 innings versus the Chicago Cubs 12 days earlier, failed to fan a single batter in the 12-2 loss to the Bronx Bombers. He also hit a batter and was charged with a wild pitch versus the Yankees.

 

As for the Twins, they'll be leaning on Nick Blackburn to get them through today at Target Field. The right-hander, just 1-2 with a 6.46 ERA in four career games versus Milwaukee, has dropped two straight outings, the most recent of which was a 15-0 thrashing by LA on Monday.

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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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