Ambres' hit sends Mets past Dodgers

Baseball Betting Lines

07/23/2007 - Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chip Ambres hit a two-out RBI single in the 10th inning to give New York the lead, as the Mets rallied late to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-4, in the finale of a four-game set.

Nomar Garciaparra's two-run homer in the sixth inning gave Los Angeles a 4-2 lead, but the Mets scored a run each in the eighth and ninth to send the game into extra innings.

Jose Reyes led off the eighth with a double, went to third on a groundout and scored on Carlos Beltran's sacrifice fly to bring New York within 4-3.

Jonathan Broxton then struggled in the ninth and the Mets took advantage of a Matt Kemp error to tie the game. Carlos Delgado greeted Broxton with a single and a Broxton wild pitch allowed pinch-runner Anderson Hernandez to reach second.

After Paul Lo Duca's groundout sent Hernandez to third, Kemp dropped Shawn Green's fly ball to shallow right field, allowing to Hernandez to cross home plate and Green to reach second.

Broxton then uncorked his second wild pitch of the inning to send Green to third before recovering to striking out Ruben Gotay and pinch-hitter Ramon Castro to avoid further damage.

However, New York went right back to work in the 10th as Lastings Milledge and Beltran hit back-to-back one-out singles off D. J. Houlton (0-1). Then, after David Wright grounded into a force out to put runners, Ambres came through with a run-scoring single to left.

Los Angeles threatened in the bottom of the 10th as Juan Pierre led off with a walk before swiping second. Billy Wagner struck out Russell Martin and intentionally walked Jeff Kent before he caught Kemp looking at a called third strike.

A wild pitch moved the runners over a base, but Wagner struck out Garciaparra to nail down his 22nd save of the season.

Reyes finished 3-for-5 with a triple and two runs scored and Pedro Feliciano (2-1) pitched a scoreless inning of relief to pick up the win for the Mets, who took three of four against LA.

Rafael Furcal homered and Luis Gonzalez scored twice for the Dodgers, who have lost four of six after a five-game winning streak.

Furcal led off the game with his third homer of the season and James Loney's two-out RBI double in the fourth made it 2-0.

LA Eric starter Stults, meanwhile, retired 10 straight batters until Lo Duca led off the fifth with a single. Stults quickly erased Lo Duca with a double play groundout, but the left-hander ran into trouble in the sixth as New York tied the game.

After Mets starter Orlando Hernandez struck out, Reyes legged out his 10th triple of the year before scoring on Milledge's double.

Rudy Seanez took over for Stults and Wright's two-out RBI single made it 2-2. The Dodgers answered in the home half of the sixth as Gonzalez walked with one out and Garciaparra crushed the first pitch he saw over the left field wall.

Stults pitched 5 1/3 innings in just his third career start, yielding two runs on five hits with five strikeouts and no walks. Hernandez, on the other hand, was tagged for four runs on seven hits through six innings.

Game Notes

Stults made his first career start against the Mets last September and picked up the win after pitching six innings of one-run ball...Broxton allowed a run in a day game for the first time this season (17 1/3 innings)...Pierre went hitless in four at-bats and saw his 14-game hitting streak come to an end.

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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.

To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.

Kurt Warner to start, Matt Leinart to watch

Despite the debate that's swirling , Kurt Warner will remain the starting quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals, coach Dennis Green said today. The Arizona Cardinals are the +7 point underdog at online sportsbook MySportsbook.com for this Sunday's game.

Green's comment came in a statement released by the team following an ESPN report that Green decided that rookie Matt Leinart would replace Warner as starter for Sunday's game at Atlanta.

"Generally talking about the starting lineup is not something we do," Green told the AP. "However, given the speculation that was out there we want to make it clear. We're disappointed after last week, but we still expect to be a playoff football team and we fully expect Kurt Warner to be the quarterback that leads us. That has not changed."

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your bet on football needs.