Ortiz's late heroics helps BoSox slip past Detroit

Baseball Betting Lines

07/31/2010 - Boston, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - David Ortiz provided some late-game dramatics yet again, belting a game-winning three-run double in the ninth inning to lift the Red Sox to a 5-4 victory over the Detroit Tigers.

Ryan Perry, who came into the game for the Tigers in the seventh, began the ninth by allowing a leadoff single to Darnell McDonald and was lifted in favor of Phil Coke (6-2).

Coke was able to induce a fly out from Marco Scutaro, but Jed Lowrie followed with a pinch-hit double to send McDonald to third. After intentionally walking Kevin Youkilis to load the bases, Ortiz blasted a double to deep center to plate all three runners and win the game.

Ortiz's hit comes one game after his ninth-inning grand slam nearly gave Boston another comeback win, falling just one run short in Friday's 6-5 defeat in the series opener. The rally made a winner of Hideki Okajima (4-3), who threw one scoreless frame.

Ryan Kalish, making his major league debut, added two hits, an RBI and a run scored for the Red Sox, who have won six of nine but finished July at a mediocre 12-13. McDonald finished 2-for-4 with an RBI in the win.

Miguel Cabrera clubbed his 26th home run of the season for the Tigers, who have lost five of six. Max Scherzer was denied the win despite allowing just one run on nine hits and a walk while fanning three in 6 1/3 frames.

It didn't take long for the Tigers to put a couple runs on the board.

Will Rhymes worked a one-out walk, and, after Brennan Boesch fouled out, Cabrera crushed a 1-0 pitch down the middle well over the Green Monster for a two-run Detroit advantage.

The visitors added to their lead in the second, as Jeff Frazier singled with one away, moved to second on a Gerald Laird's infield single and scored on Ramon Santiago's base hit to center.

Santiago's RBI double in the fourth made it 4-0, and Scherzer made it stand up with a gem of an outing.

Scherzer was also the beneficiary of three double plays before the Red Sox got to him in the seventh. Adrian Beltre reached on an infield single and moved to third when Bill Hall singled and got thrown out at second trying to stretch the play. Brad Thomas was brought in from the bullpen and yielded an RBI single to Kalish before McDonald's RBI double off Perry brought Boston to within 4-2.

Perry, though, limited the damage in the inning and pitched around a leadoff single in the eighth to maintain Detroit's two-run advantage.

Game Notes

A roster spot was made available for Kalish when Jeremy Hermida was designated for assignment...The Tigers still lead the season series, 3-2...Cabrera, with a 2-for-3 effort, raised his batting average to .351 (second in the AL) and increased his MLB-leading RBI total to 91. His 26 homers are second in the league, five behind Toronto's Jose Bautista.

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Big 12 Conference betting odds

Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.

Work left to do:

Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.

Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.

Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.


FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

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