Brewers sweep Nats

Baseball Betting Lines

07/25/2010 - Milwaukee, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Casey McGehee hit a three-run homer and Rickie Weeks clubbed a two-run shot, as the Milwaukee Brewers completed a three-game sweep of the Washington Nationals with an 8-3 victory at Miller Park.

Jonathan Lucroy went 2-for-4 with an RBI and run scored for the Brewers, who have won four straight.

Dave Bush (5-8) earned the win for allowing three runs -- two earned -- on six hits with seven strikeouts and did not issue a walk over six innings.

"I like to work quickly and throw a lot of strikes and kind of force the tempo," Bush said. "Any win is a good one no matter who it's against."

Adam Dunn and Nyjer Morgan had two hits and an RBI apiece for Washington, which has lost seven of nine.

Ross Detwiler (0-1) was tagged with the loss after working only 3 2/3 innings and giving up five unearned runs on three hits with as many walks and struck out four. The left-hander was a replacement for starter Luis Atilano, who was placed on the 15-day disabled list with bone chips in his pitching elbow.

"We did not have a good day defensively today," Nationals manager Jim Riggleman said. "We certainly didn't get it done today, but Detwiler has to pitch around them (errors). I thought he did a good job and minimized the damage. We're just having growing pains."

Milwaukee put two runs up in the first to grab the early advantage. With the bases loaded and two outs, Lucroy punched a run-scoring single through the right side and Detwiler's wild pitch allowed another run to score for a 2-0 game.

The Brewers then tacked on three more in the fourth. Lucroy led off with a single and stole second. Bush then hit a grounder to shortstop, but Ian Desmond's throwing error allowed Lucroy to score with Bush taking second. Weeks followed by hammering a 1-1 offering into the left-field seats to put Milwaukee ahead 5-0.

Washington got on the board in the sixth on a sacrifice fly from Josh Willingham and an RBI single by Dunn. Morgan's run-scoring base hit in the seventh drew the Nationals to within 5-3.

However, the Brewers responded with a three-run home half. Alcides Escobar tripled leading off and Prince Fielder was intentionally walked two batters later. McGehee then stepped up and cleared the bases with a three-run blast to center.

Kameron Loe worked a scoreless eighth and Trevor Hoffman got the final three outs in the ninth to close out the win.

Game Notes

Brewers outfielders Jim Edmonds (right Achilles) and Corey Hart (right wrist) missed the game...The Nationals took two of three from the Brewers at home from April 16-18, but have lost in 12 of their last 14 visits to Miller Park...Bush improved 4-2 in six lifetime starts against Washington.

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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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