Johnson hopes for record-setting start in Marlins-Giants tilt

Baseball Betting Lines

07/27/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Josh Johnson could put himself into the record books when the Florida Marlins continue their four-game series with the San Francisco Giants this evening at AT&T Park.

Johnson has gone 13 straight starts without allowing more than two earned runs, a streak dating back to May 8 when he surrendered three runs to the Washington Nationals. The only streak longer was Mike Scott's amazing 14-game run with the Houston Astros in 1986.

"I'm just going out there with the mindset, if something's working, don't change it," Johnson said. "I try to keep my team in the game. I don't know what to tell you. I try not to put any extra pressure on myself. I do what I'm doing in each game."

Johnson lowered his league-leading earned run average to 1.61 Thursday against Colorado but did not get a win, as he allowed a run and five hits in 6 1/3 innings. He is 10-3 on the season.

However, the Giants have had their way with Johnson, who is 0-3 with a 3.00 ERA in four starts against them.

The Marlins continued to creep up the standings on Monday, as Dan Uggla and Mike Stanton homered to back the strong pitching of Ricky Nolasco in Florida's 4-3 win.

Nolasco (11-7) allowed four hits, a run, walked a batter and had seven strikeouts over 6 1/3 innings to win for the sixth time in his last seven starts.

"I understood those guys were putting up some really good at-bats, fouling of a lot of good pitches," Nolasco said. "I just wasn't going to give in. Obviously I wanted to keep my pitch count down, but I wasn't able to pitch deeper in the game."

Stanton drove in two and Leo Nunez surrendered a run in the ninth, but left the potential tying tally at third for his 24th save as the Marlins posted their eighth win in 10 games.

Barry Zito (8-6) permitted eight hits and three runs over 6 1/3 innings and suffered his first career loss when facing Florida. Zito, who had been 5-0 in six starts versus the Marlins, had three strikeouts.

Aaron Rowand belted a pinch-hit two-run homer in the seventh inning, but the Giants had a four-game winning streak broken and lost for just the fourth time in their last 19 contests. Buster Posey extended his hitting streak to 19 games, the second-longest by a San Francisco rookie since Hall of Famer Willie McCovey's 22-gamer in 1959.

Getting the call for the Giants tonight will be righty Matt Cain, who has won his last two starts. Cain was brilliant Thursday in Arizona, as he scattered three hits over eight scoreless innings to run his record to 8-8 while lowering his ERA to 3.10.

Cain beat the Marlins back on May 6 and is 3-0 with a 2.83 ERA in six starts against them.

San Francisco swept a three-game set from the Marlins earlier in the year and has won five of the last seven meetings in the series.

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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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