Gonzalez continues torrid pace as Rockies down Reds

Baseball Betting Lines

09/07/2010 - Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Carlos Gonzalez, arguably the league's hottest hitter, blasted an early three-run homer to help lift the streaking Colorado Rockies to a 4-3 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.

Gonzalez extended his hit streak to 15 with his 32nd home run, and the Rockies won for the fifth straight game to close to within four games of first-place San Diego, which is currently playing Los Angeles. Gonzalez, who jumped into the Triple Crown race, has 31 hits in his last 59 at-bats with seven homers and 21 RBI.

The former Oakland and Arizona farmhand currently leads the National League with a .340 batting average and 100 RBI, but trails Albert Pujols by three home runs.

Miguel Olivo added three hits and an RBI, while Jhoulys Chacin (8-9) allowed two runs on six hits in six innings to earn the win. Huston Street picked up his 16th save, as the Rockies won for the eighth straight time over Cincinnati at Coors Field.

Drew Stubbs hit a two-run single, while Jonny Gomes homered for the Reds, who have lost four of five but still lead the Cardinals by six games in the NL Central after St. Louis lost to Milwaukee on Tuesday.

Johnny Cueto (12-5) allowed four runs -- three earned -- on seven hits and two walks in six innings to take the loss.

Gonzalez's incredible stretch continued in the opening inning.

Eric Young Jr. and Dexter Fowler opened the game with consecutive singles, and Gonzalez made it count with a three-run blast to left for an early lead.

The Reds didn't get on the board until a mental mistake by the Rockies in the fourth.

With runners on first and second and two outs, Ramon Hernandez hit a ground ball toward the third baseman Melvin Mora. Instead of throwing to first to get the slow runner in Hernandez, Mora attempted to run and tag third, but Joey Votto beat the play. Stubbs followed with his single for a one-run game.

An error by Brandon Phillips helped Colorado increase its lead to 4-2 in the sixth. With two outs and nobody on base, Seth Smith hit a weak ground ball to Phillips, who couldn't handle it. Olivo followed with a line drive in the left-centerfield gap, scoring Smith on the double.

Matt Belisle maintained the Rockies' lead with a scoreless seventh, but Rafael Betancourt allowed a two-out solo homer to Gomes to make it a 4-3 game heading to the ninth.

Street pitched around a two-out single in the ninth to polish off the win.

Game Notes

The Reds' last win at Coors Field came on August 22, 2008...Young Jr. had two hits and a stolen base for Colorado...Both starting pitchers struck out five...Chacin threw 72 of his 107 pitches for strikes...Phillips' error was his first in 63 games since May 17.

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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.”

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