Pedro set to return as Mets aim for rebound against Giants

Baseball Betting Lines

06/03/2008 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Pedro Martinez is expected to make his return to New York's starting rotation tonight as the Mets continue a three-game set with the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park.

The Mets figured to have secured an outstanding 1-2 punch when they acquired Johan Santana in the offseason, combining their expensive left-hander with the emotionally-charged right arm of Martinez. However, the jury is still out after Martinez suffered a left hamstring strain in his first start of the season.

Martinez, a seven-time All-Star and three-time Cy Young Award winner, lasted just 3 1/3 innings versus Florida on April 1, allowing four runs on four hits without getting a decision.

In the final year of his contract, Martinez will try to rebound from a string of recent injuries in tonight's start. In addition to his hamstring strain, the 36-year-old made just five late-season starts last year due to right rotator cuff surgery.

In 14 career starts and five relief appearances versus the Giants, Martinez is 9-2 with a 3.59 earned run average. He will be facing San Francisco for the first time since 2004.

Six days after posting his first win of the season, Barry Zito, tonight's starter for the Giants, got a no-decision his last time out as he continues to pitch better. Zito lasted six innings against Arizona on Thursday, giving up three runs on six hits while striking out five.

The left-hander, who is 1-5 with a 5.53 ERA, hasn't given up more than three runs in any of his last five starts, all of which have come after he was banished to the bullpen for a short period. Though he didn't make any relief appearances, Zito has a 3.49 ERA since coming back from his demotion.

Zito has won both of his career outings against the Mets, posting a 2.08 ERA in that span. That includes a home win against them on May 7 of last year, an outing that saw the lefty hurl seven shutout frames.

Zito will try to pitch the Giants to a series win tonight, after San Francisco took the opener of this three-game set on Monday. The Giants jumped all over the Mets with a six-run first inning on the way to a 10-2 victory.

Randy Winn began the game with a homer, Bengie Molina stroked an RBI single, Ray Durham added a two-run double and Brian Horwitz capped the frame with a two-run homer, the first of his career.

Durham and Horwitz ended with three RBI each.

Jonathan Sanchez (4-3) got the win after giving up two runs and six hits in seven innings of work, guiding the Giants to their second straight victory and fifth in seven games.

San Francisco's Aaron Rowand went 2-for-5 with two runs scored, stretching his hitting streak to 10 games. He is batting .436 (17-for-39) with nine runs scored, three homers, 13 RBI and seven multi-hit games. He leads the Giants with a .342 average and has three hits in five career at-bats versus Martinez with a double, triple and two RBI.

Luis Castillo and Jose Reyes each drove in a run for the Mets, who had won their previous two games. Oliver Perez (4-4) got the loss after he was pounded for six runs on five hits along with two walks while recording just one out in the start.

The Mets won four of six against the Giants last year, going 2-1 at AT&T Park.

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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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