Buccos get to Hoffman and snap 22-game skid in Milwaukee

Baseball Betting Lines

04/27/2010 - Milwaukee, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Trevor Hoffman continues to struggle this season, and his latest meltdown helped the Pirates snap a 22-game skid in Milwaukee.

Ronny Cedeno hit the tying homer to lead off the ninth inning, and Ryan Doumit belted the winning grand slam in Pittsburgh's 7-3 triumph in the middle test of the three-game series.

Prince Fielder smashed the tie-breaking home run in the eighth inning, giving Milwaukee the 3-2 lead, but Hoffman suffered his third blown save of this year, helping Pittsburgh snap its seven-game slide.

"It was a nice win for us to break the streak against one of the best closers in the game," Pirates manager John Russell said. "It's important for our young guys that we found a way to win this one."

Hoffman (1-2) has allowed at least one run in five of his eight appearances this season, including five home runs. He surrendered just two homers all of 2009.

"It's a function of not throwing quality strikes," Hoffman said. "My fastball is a good pitch when it's located. Bottom line is it punches the team in the gut. Individually, that's how you feel responsible. My confidence is still good. I still feel good."

Jeff Clement homered and joined Doumit with three hits, while Andy LaRoche had a four-hit night for the Pirates, who gained their first win in Milwaukee since May 3, 2007.

Hoffman, the all-time major league saves leader with 594, gave up a homer to Cedeno on a 1-0 pitch. After Andrew McCutchen struck out, LaRoche singled, Lastings Milledge doubled and Garrett Jones was intentionally walked. Doumit then crushed a 2-0 fastball over the wall in right field.

"These last seven days have been pretty trying for us as a team," Doumit said. "That's why baseball is such a beautiful sport. This one feels good because we haven't won here in three years and we could've rolled over after Fielder's homer in the eighth. I was looking for a sacrifice fly and I got something up I thought I could handle."

It was the only hit for the Pirates with runners in scoring position (1-for-11).

Doumit's hit allowed Brendan Donnelly (2-0) to get the win, as he recorded the last out in the eighth inning to escape a jam with two runners on base.

George Kottaras also homered, and Craig Counsell added an RBI double for the Brewers, who prior to Tuesday had beaten the Pirates in all four meetings by a combined 53-4 margin.

Jeff Karstens, making his first start of the season, gave up six hits and two runs over 6 2/3 frames for the Pirates. Randy Wolf started for Milwaukee and allowed 10 hits and two runs in eight frames.

Doumit doubled to start the top of the second and scored two batters later on Akinori Iwamura's sacrifice fly.

Wolf doubled with one out in the third and came home on Counsell's two-bagger off the base of the wall in right.

Clement homered to right with one out in the fourth, but Kottaras homered to right on the first pitch he saw to start the seventh to tie the game.

Fielder led off the bottom of the eighth by crushing Javier Lopez's 1-0 pitch well over the wall in center field.

Game Notes

Earlier Tuesday, the Pirates selected the contract of Karstens from Triple-A Indianapolis. To make room on the 25-man active roster and 40-man roster, the Pirates designated outfielder John Raynor for assignment. Karstens became the eighth different pitcher to start a game for the club this year, the most in the first 20 games of a season since 1953...Legendary broadcaster Bob Uecker announced at a press conference Tuesday he will undergo heart surgery later this week and be away from the Brewers broadcast booth for the next 10-12 weeks. Uecker will have an aortic valve replaced as well as part of an aortic root. The fans at Miller Park gave Uecker a standing ovation during the game.

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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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