Capuano leads Brewers into second test with Pirates

Baseball Betting Lines

08/28/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Former staff ace Chris Capuano makes his third start of the season tonight, when the Milwaukee Brewers host the Pittsburgh Pirates in the middle game of three over the weekend at Miller Park.

Alcides Escobar's two-run triple sparked a six-run seventh inning on Friday as the Brewers took a 7-2 win.

Ryan Braun and Corey Hart each drove in two runs, while Jonathan Lucroy scored twice and drove in one for the Brewers, who snapped a four-game slide.

Chris Narveson (10-7) worked seven innings and was charged with two runs on seven hits with a walk and eight strikeouts to get the win.

Chris Snyder hit a solo home run and Ronny Cedeno drove in the other run for the Pirates, who had won three of four coming in.

James McDonald (2-4) was charged with six runs on seven hits with two walks and seven strikeouts over 6 1/3 innings in the loss.

Meanwhile, Capuano was an 18-game winner for Milwaukee in 2005 and followed that campaign with 11 wins a year later before skidding to just five wins in 2007. He did not make a single big-league appearance in 2008-09.

He returned to the Brewers with a June 3 start at Florida and dropped a 3-2 decision and has since made one start and 15 trips in from the bullpen, compiling an overall 3.72 earned run average in 29 innings.

The 6-foot-2, 224-pounder has not been scored upon in his last three relief outings, allowing no hits and striking out seven batters over 5 2/3 innings against Colorado, San Diego and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He faced the Pirates three times in July and was 1-0, while surrendering four hits and a run in 6 1/3 innings.

For Pittsburgh, Zach Duke aims for a second straight win for the third time this season.

The 27-year-old won two straight games from April 5 and 10, then repeated the feat on July 21 and 27, including a 15-3 rout of the Brewers.

He was a winner over the New York Mets in his most recent start on Aug. 22, allowing five hits and a run in seven innings.

Duke is 4-7 in 16 career meetings with Milwaukee with a 6.10 ERA.

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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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