Dodgers, Cardinals to face off in NLDS rematch

Baseball Betting Lines

06/07/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Playing in close games has become a habit of the Los Angeles Dodgers as of late. That wasn't the case the last time they faced the St. Louis Cardinals.

Los Angeles and St. Louis square off for the first time since last season's National League Division Series, a set swept by the Dodgers, with tonight's opener of a three-game set at Chavez Ravine.

Los Angeles is 5-2 on its current 13-game homestand, a residency that has seen the Dodgers win three games in extra innings. In fact, seven of LA's last eight games have been decided by just one run.

The Cardinals would like to keep it that close this evening. The Dodgers marched on to the NLCS last season after a 5-1 victory over the Cards on Oct. 10, a game in which they outhit St. Louis 12-6 and led by four runs after four innings.

That playoff matchup came after the Cardinals won five of seven versus the Dodgers in the regular season, including two of three in Los Angeles. The Dodgers went on to fall to the Phillies in five games in the following round.

A return to the postseason could be in Los Angeles' future they way it has played as of late. The club has won six of its last eight and trails San Diego by a half-game for first place in the National League West following Sunday's 5-4 victory over Atlanta in 11 innings.

Backup catcher A.J. Ellis was the hero thanks to a walk-off RBI single.

"This is definitely the most special," said Ellis when asked where this ranks among all the hits in his career. "The team kept giving me chances to drive somebody in and finally on my third try, I was able to get it done."

Carlos Monasterios makes his third start in a row for the Dodgers and he is 2-0 with a 1.87 earned run average in 14 games, including three starts, this season.

The rookie right-hander got a no-decision in Wednesday's 1-0 extra-inning victory over Arizona despite throwing five scoreless innings of two-hit ball without a walk. His outing was cut short, however, due to a blister that shouldn't prevent the 24-year-old from facing the Cardinals for the first time in his career tonight.

The Cardinals, who are tied with the Reds for first place in the NL Central, will look to get back in the win column tonight after Sunday's 4-3 loss to the Brewers snapped a three-game win streak. St. Louis suffered a defeat and failed to record a three-game sweep when Milwaukee's Corey Hart plated a 10th- inning run with a sacrifice fly.

Colby Rasmus and Albert Pujols homered in the loss, in which the Cardinals struck out 12 times in the game, including 10 times versus Brewers starter Manny Parra.

"You want to win every game, but the plan is to win two out of three," shortstop Brendan Ryan told St. Louis' website. "Obviously we had a chance to sweep, but shoot, good pitching is tough to beat and Parra was outstanding tonight."

Pujols remained red-hot over a seven-game hitting streak, going .458 (11 for-24) over the burst with five homers and 10 RBI. Matt Holliday, meanwhile, ran his hit streak to 10 games and is batting .421 (16-for-38) with a homer and seven RBI over his burst.

Rasmus, who has three homers over his last five games, left last night's game early due to tightness in his left calf and was replaced by Randy Winn, who made his first appearance with the Cardinals since signing on Saturday. That came just over a week after he was released by the New York Yankees.

Manger Tony La Russa has yet to select a starter for this game, but it is believed that it will be either P.J. Walters or Blake Hawksworth. Walters' last two appearances have been starts, while Hawksworth has yet to start a game in his major league career.

The right-handed Walters, who has never faced the Dodgers, pitched well in his first start on May 27 versus San Diego, throwing five shutout innings of four- hit ball in a win. However, he was tagged for seven runs on eight hits over just four frames Tuesday versus the Reds, but got a no-decision in his team's 9-8 loss and is 1-0 with a 6.23 ERA in three overall appearances on the season.

The right-handed Hawksworth was one of five pitchers used in relief of Walters on Tuesday, as he recorded the last two outs of the seventh inning while working around a hit. In two career relief outings versus Los Angeles, the 27- year-old is 1-0 with a 2.25 ERA over four innings of work.

Hawksworth was 4-0 with a 2.03 ERA in 30 outings last year and is 0-2 with a 5.14 ERA in 18 games this season.

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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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