Sports Handicapping – Page 21

Five Notes From Monday

Posted on May 19, 2008May 19, 2008 by T.O. Whentam in Sports Handicapping

Mondays aren’t supposed to be busy days on the sports front, but this one certainly was. Here are five things that caught my eye today:

1. It was covered here by someone else earlier tonight, but I have to touch on Jon Lester again. Impressive on a couple of fronts – Boston having two no-hitters in less than a year, Jason Varitek catching both games, Lester’s story. It would be an even better story if it had have been against a major league team instead of the Triple-A adequate Kansas City Royals. Based on what I wrote here last week I’ll be taking a very close look at Lester next time out.

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Seven Random Things

Posted on May 15, 2008June 12, 2008 by T.O. Whentam in Sports Handicapping

Justine Henin retired suddenly yesterday despite the fact that she was number one in the world rankings. A couple of things arise from that. First, it’s sad where we have gotten to as a society of sports watchers – an athletes leaves suddenly and I can’t help but wonder what she was about to be caught doing. That’s probably not the case here, but we can’t help but wonder. Second, there goes one of the easiest bets in tennis. She had won three straight French Opens. The tournament starts in a couple of weeks. She hasn’t been playing well lately, but she still would have been an automatic bet for a few rounds.

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Seven Interesting Stories (At Least To Me)

Posted on May 12, 2008May 19, 2008 by T.O. Whentam in Sports Handicapping

1. There are only six guys in the majors with the last name Cabrera, but it seems like there are about 212. Every time I turn around another one is in the news. The latest did it in an impressive way – Cleveland second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera turned just the 14th unassisted triple play in major league history in the second game of a doubleheader against Toronto. He dove to catch a line drive, touched second for out number two, and the tagged Marco Scutaro, the guy who should own a hundred pizza places based on his name alone, to enter history. Troy Tulowitzki had one last season, and the previous unassisted play was in 2000.

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Three Quick Thoughts

Posted on May 10, 2008May 19, 2008 by T.O. Whentam in Sports Handicapping

It’s Saturday night and you should be out doing something more interesting than reading what I have to say, but I will hit three quick topics that caught my eye today:

1. A somewhat dull Triple Crown trail just got a whole lot more interesting. It looked like we were living in a one freak world – Big Brown. A second one emerged today. Casino Drive had only run once in his life before today, and it was in Japan. He won by a mile, though. More significantly, he has captured the attention of racing fans because he has shipped over here specifically for the Belmont, and because he is (at least) a half brother to Jazil and Rags to Riches (the last two Belmont winners). To tune up for that race which is a month off, the horse ran in the Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont against a reasonably decent crowd. It was a massacre. I could describe it further, but you had better see this one for yourself:

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Thursday Quick Hits

Posted on May 8, 2008June 12, 2008 by T.O. Whentam in Sports Handicapping

After two games in Boston LeBron James is 8-of-42 shooting. Ouch. Boston is good and all, but that’s no excuse for a guy that good to be that bad
Zab Judah hurt his arm and had to pull out of a fight against Sugar Shane Mosley scheduled for the end of the month. Boxing is in a sad state when the biggest story of the week is that we don’t get to see a fight between a couple of mostly washed up guys that nobody really needed to see anyway
Here’s a news flash – Brandon Webb is pretty good. He made his eighth start of the year today and earned his league leading eighth win. He did it by tossing a gem – two earned runs and four strikeouts without a walk in a complete game. He’d picked on some lousy teams in his first six starts, but he’s beat the Mets and the Phillies in the last two, so the impressive factor just ratcheted up a bit.
Dallas can start booking tee times for about 10 days from now. The Stars have only played one game against the Red Wings, but it looked like the men against the boys. The world would have to tilt on its axis for Detroit to beat Dallas.
Sergio Garcia is leading the first round of the Players Championship by two strokes, but a stat jumped out when I saw it – the Spaniard is sitting 158th on the tour in putts per round. It’s not a wonder that he isn’t living up to his potential of late. That’s ugly.
Chauncey Billups says he isn’t sure if he is going to play in game four after he strained his right hamstring in game three. I’m sure he ultimately will play unless he is confined to a stretcher or something, but that’s not very good news for the Pistons. Obviously.
It’s funny how baseball works. If you had asked me six weeks ago I would have told you that Cleveland was dangerous because there rotation was so good, but if I had a guy who was going to be carrying a heavy load who I was worried about it was Cliff Lee. Now, Lee is 6-0 and giving up less than a run a game, Fausto Carmona is solid at 3-1 with a 2.95 ERA, and the rest of the rotation is 3-12. You couldn’t have seen that coming anymore than you could have seen that Detroit’s staff would be 6-16, or that Justin Verlander would be stinking it out at 1-6 with a 6.43 ERA. I was rock solid on Verlander as my Cy Young pick, and I was feeling painfully unoriginal doing it.

Wednesday Night Notes

Posted on May 7, 2008June 12, 2008 by T.O. Whentam in Sports Handicapping

It doesn’t really mean much on the grand scheme of things from a betting perspective, but one of my favorite things in baseball happened tonight – Minnesota’s Carlos Gomez hit for the cycle. He did it in what was an epic 13-1 beatdown of the White Sox by Minnesota. The usually solid Mark Buehrle got the start for Chicago, but it didn’t go well. After five decent innings the wheels fell off in the sixth when he allowed five earned runs. That was much better than Ehren Wassermann was in relief – he allowed five earned runs and only recorded one out. This is more of the same for the White Sox recently – they have on win in their last eight. Buehrle and his boys were favored tonight, though you wouldn’t guess it by the final score.
I like it any time the Yankees lose, but I especially liked it tonight because it was the first loss for ace Chien-Ming Wang. He allowed three runs in seven innings against Cleveland, but that was too many. Cliff Lee started for the Indians, and he was magical – seven strikeouts with no runs or walks in seven innings. Lee has been one of the truly great stories of the season so far. He’s mostly a journeyman type, though he was 18-5 in 2005. This year he is 6-0 in his six starts, and his ERA is a ridiculous 0.81. His strikeout to walk ratio is alright, too – 39/2. He’s far from the biggest name in the league, but if the Cy Young was awarded today he would be a shoo-in. The best part tonight was that he was up against Wang and the Yankees, so Lee went off as +131 underdog despite being essentially unhittable all year. That’s a nice bargain.
There have been eight games in the second round of the NBA playoffs so far. The home team has won all eight. A monkey could make money on that. If only it were always so easy.

Sunday’s Happenings

Posted on May 4, 2008June 12, 2008 by T.O. Whentam in Sports Handicapping

Crazy, crazy, crazy game between Dallas and San Jose tonight. San Jose needed a win in game six to survive. It was tied at one after regulation, and still tied after three overtime periods. The fourth overtime was a farce. The players were so tired that they could hardly move, and I’m sure both teams just wanted the suffering to end one way or another. Brenden Morrow finally scored the winner for Dallas halfway through the seventh period. The goal came on the powerplay, and it was a bit of a shame to see it end like that. Unfortunately for San Jose, though, the penalty was pretty blatant. Dallas has a few days to recuperate from this one – they don’t play Detroit until Thursday.
The good news is that Tampa Bay got Scott Kazmir back today for the first time this year. The bad news is that they need him to be really good and he wasn’t. He lasted just four innings and allowed three earned runs in that time. There were some signs of hope from amongst the gloom, though – he struck out five and only walked three.
CSKA Moscow beat Maccabi Tel Aviv Sunday to win the Euroleague championship. I love checking out the European games to see which players have ended up over there. There were some real gems in this one. Trajan Langdon, the Alaska-born former Duke star, was the MVP of the game and is one of the true stars of the league. One of his teammates is J.R. Holden. He played with Bucknell before heading to Russia, and he took Russian citizenship so that he doesn’t have to use up a foreign spot on the roster. THe losers were led by captain and point guard Derrick Sharp. He played at South Florida, but he is 36 so that was a while ago.
Pittsburgh has one loss in two rounds, and there is no reason not to expect them to cruise through the battle of Pennsylvania relatively unscathed. They are young and have a lot to prove yet, but at this point they have to be solidly viewed as the favorites from among the four teams remaining. I’d take the youth and speed of Pittsburgh over the age and experience of Detroit.
It won’t show up in their records because neither guy got a decision, but Johan Santana and Dan Haren had a heck of a duel today. Santana allowed one run in six innings, with 8 K’s and 4 walks. Haren responded with two runs in six innings with just one walk against seven K’s. Chad Qualls blew it for Arizona in the end with an uncharacteristically bad showing – three runs in the ninth.

Wednesday’s Notes

Posted on April 30, 2008June 12, 2008 by T.O. Whentam in Sports Handicapping

Random notes from Wednesday afternoon:

You had better get used to the BCS the way it is now because it isn’t going to change any time soon. After much discussion today the BCS officials have chosen to change nothing until at least 2014. There was a proposal on the table to go to a four team playoff in 2010, but that was rejected. According to the officials the BCS is in an ‘unprecedented state of health’. That’s clear evidence that the BCS officials don’t actually watch the BCS games.
Ugly, ugly game by the Mets today. They lost 13-1. To the Pirates, of all teams. To make matters even worse, nine of the 13 runs Pittsburgh scored were unearned. There’s sloppy and then there is the game New York played today. Five pitcher appeared for the Mets, but just two were responsible for the unearned scores. Oliver Perez started, but he didn’t make it out of the second inning. He allowed seven runs, but only two were earned. He walked five. Jorge Sosa was the third pitcher in, and he made Perez look sharp by comparison. He allowed four hits and five runs (one earned) in one inning. The rest of the team did their part in this mess by contributing three errors.
We have another drug cheat in baseball. Giants’ catcher Eliezer Alfonzo is out for 50 games after testing positive for performance enhancers. He has been in the minors this year, but he started 113 games over the last two years and had put up respectable numbers. He probably would have found his way back to San Francisco soonif he hadn’t got caught because the drugs were obviously working – he was hitting .306 with 14 RBIs in 16 games.
The Kentucky Derby is only three days away. The post position draw occurred today, and it featured an odd moment. Big Brown, the Derby favorite, is trained by Richard Dutrow, Jr. He is one of the most obnoxiously arrogant men on the planet. He has been so boastful about his horse that if you listened to him you would wonder why they are even bothering to run the race before giving his horse the roses. No one wants the outside post – number 20 – in the race because the horse has to travel so far to get to the rail. No one except for Dutrow that is. Other posts were available when Dutrow picked his post, but he took the 20. He says it is because he doesn’t want a horse outside of him, but more likely it’s just another way for him to show off. The horse has been unbelievable, but it has to overcome a lot to win here – he has raced only three times, including just two this year. No horse in more than 70 years has won the Derby without having run at least five times before.

Friday’s Random Thoughts

Posted on April 25, 2008June 12, 2008 by T.O. Whentam in Sports Handicapping

A few quick thoughts on draft-day-minus-one (incidentally, I will be live-blogging throughout the first round tomorrow):

I can’t decide if I was surprised to see Tyler Hansbrough stay in college for his senior season or not. On one hand, he was a guaranteed first rounder who would make a few million dollars over the next couple of years, and there is always the chance that he could be hurt or do something to fall out of favor. On the other hand, his game is clearly made more for college and he will be the runaway early favorite for Player of the Year next year, so the risk is going to be relatively low. Given that he decided to stay I was a bit surprised that Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington declared, though neither has an agent so anything could still happen. If I were betting I would say that Lawson will come back for another year because this is a guard-heavy draft and he isn’t going to be in the lottery. He easily could be with a strong year next year. If that happens then Ellington should return, too – he’s likely a second rounder as it is. And if all three guys come back then North Carolina will unfortunately be at least as good as this year. No matter what happens, Roy Williams is having a very good day.
The Raptors and the Wizards earned much needed bug wins in the NBA playoffs last night. Unless I am missing something that means that in seven of the series only one road team – Philadelphia in game one against Detroit – has won a game so far. If only handicapping were always that easy. The only exception is the Utah-Houston series. In that one the home team has yet to win through three games. Other than that series the home team is at 13-3 ATS.
Larry Brown has quit his gig with the 76ers to free himself up to take a coaching gig. In related news, Larry Brown really needs to go away.
Another interesting reminder of how tough it is to draft players on the eve of this year’s edition: Five years agao the Jets picked DT Dewayne Robertson from Kentucky fourth overall. He was seen as a beast, and was the first defensive player off the board – ahead of guys like Terence Newman, Kevin Williams, Terrell Suggs, and Troy Polamalu. He was healthy but unimpressive in his first few years, and unhealthy and equally unimpressive more recently. The Jets tried to trade him to Cincinnati in March, but it fell through. Now they have sent him to Denver for a conditional draft pick that will fall somewhere in the mid rounds depending on how much he plays. Robertson was supposed to be a can’t miss prospect, but he missed pretty badly. We’ll be able to tell the same story about several of the can’t miss blue-chippers this year. It’s just a matter of which ones. My first bet is Vernon Gholston. I was also thinking today of another Big Ten offensive tackle now that Jake Long is locked in on top this year. Robert Gallery was the second pick in 2004 out of Iowa. He went behind only Eli Manning, and he was as close to a sure thing as anyone. Gallery was only okay as a right tackle his first two seasons, terrible as a left tackle in season three, and was moved inside to guard last year where he was adequate but not much more.

Wednesday’s Tidbits

Posted on April 23, 2008June 12, 2008 by T.O. Whentam in Sports Handicapping

All sorts of interesting news that affects the sports betting world today:

The Vikings are taking a big risk with Jared Allen. He’s a very good player and he’s in his prime, but they gave up three picks for him including a first rounder this year and two thirds, and then they had to ante up with a big new contract for him. He had better be really productive for several years or this can be a setback in a big way. One thing that this does do, though, is it makes me reevaluate my expectations for the Vikings this year and adjust then upwards – they must be serious about competing now if this is the investment they are willing to make. You don’t spend this kind of money and assets unless you think it is one of the final pieces in the puzzle.
Apparently Memphis isn’t attractive without Derrick Rose. In a bizarre move, both Antonio Anderson and Robert Dozier have declared for the NBA draft. That means that all five starters are now on the list. Obviously the most recent two don’t have agents yet because there is very little chance that either would get picked, and almost none that they would go in the first round and get a guaranteed contract. I never thought that they would look to go now that Calipari has a new contract and super stud Tyreke Evans is headed there next year. Maybe Calipari just suggested that they go through the draft process for the experience and whatever learning they can do. Whatever the reason, I just hope they don’t do something stupid because a senior year at Memphis would probably be a lot more fun than a year in the NBDL.
Pacman Jones is headed to Dallas. I would say that that is a much needed boost to Dallas’ secondary, but until he gets reinstated, shows that he can stay out of jail for at least a month, and is still in some kind of game shape I am going to assume he is irrelevant. I have no concerns about handling his attitude if everything else is okay – they have done fine with Owens.
The Reds made a great move. They fired the essentially useless GM Wayne Krivsky and replaced him with Walt Jocketty. Jocketty did great jobs in Oakland and St. Louis, and he should do a great job of turning around a team that has lots of nice young talent but seems to be lacking direction. If nothing else he should provide some stability – he is the fourth GM in six years, so so stability is definitely absent.
Detroit beat the 76ers easily tonight. The temporary period of panic can end and the sun will come up in Detroit tomorrow after a period of darkness.
Not that it is surprising because he has always seemed a bit unstable, but Tony Stewart appears to have officially lost his mind. Reports say that Stewart is negotiating to lose Joe Gibbs Racing after this season to go to Haas CNC. If you don’t spend much time following NASCAR it boils down to this – Gibbs is really quite good, and Haas really, really isn’t. Haas has never finished in the top 25 in owner points. The incentive is fairly obvious, though – Stewart is a star, and he will be able to negotiate partial ownership of his new team into the deal. That will allow him to cash in even more on his name and his brand than he does now. From a betting perspective it means that Stewart won’t be an automatic consideration next year like he is now because his car will be behind in development to start, and it will also unleash a chain reaction of driver moves that could further confuse the landscape. NASCAR is a bigger soap opera than the soap operas.

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