Royals welcome Orioles to Kansas City

Baseball Betting Lines

07/29/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - A pair of last-place teams seeking to end lengthy losing streaks begin a four-game series tonight at Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium, where the slumping Royals hope to get well at the expense of the lowly Baltimore Orioles.

Baltimore enters this evening's clash having lost five consecutive games and owns the worst record in the majors at 31-70. The Orioles have been especially bad since the All-Star break, compiling an awful 2-11 mark to begin the second half.

The Orioles' three most recent defeats came on the road at the hands of the Toronto Blue Jays, including a 5-0 setback in Wednesday's series finale. Baltimore mustered a mere three hits off rookie Brad Mills and three Jays relievers in suffering its 12th consecutive loss to Toronto this season.

"We've been through this all season against these guys," said Orioles manager Juan Samuel. "We gotta make better adjustments in games and try and get it done."

Baltimore's lack of offense spoiled a strong showing from starter Jeremy Guthrie (4-11), with the right-hander limiting the Blue Jays to one unearned run over seven innings in a hard-luck loss. Reliever Will Ohman gave up a three-run homer to Lyle Overbay as Toronto scored four times in the bottom of the eighth to break open the contest.

Kansas City will attempt to rebound from a forgettable last few days in which the club has lost four straight games and received atrocious pitching during the slide. The Royals allowed a whopping 42 runs over the first three defeats, then received another shaky performance out of Brian Bannister in yesterday's 6-4 loss to visiting Minnesota.

The Twins jumped out to a commanding 5-0 lead over the first four innings and held off a late Kansas City comeback attempt to complete a sweep of the three- game series.

"We gave them a [five] run lead and that helped their pitcher relax and do what he had to do," said Royals manager Ned Yost. "It just puts too much pressure on us when that happens."

Bannister (7-10) lost his fourth straight start after being tagged for five runs and 11 hits over the first six innings.

Yuniesky Betancourt and Willie Bloomquist had RBI singles during a two-run fifth inning for Kansas City, and Rick Ankiel pulled the Royals within 5-4 with a two-RBI base hit in the bottom of the eighth. Ankiel and Bloomquist each finished with a pair of hits in a losing cause.

Scott Podsednik went 2-for-5 in what turned out to be his final game in a Royals uniform. Kansas City traded the veteran outfielder to the Los Angeles Dodgers for a pair of minor-leaguers. Podsednik was batting .310 with 30 stolen bases and was riding a 15-game hitting streak at the time of the deal.

Although Royals pitchers have certainly had their problems as of late, the team has prevailed in each of Kyle Davies' last four starts and the inconsistent hurler has generally performed well over that stretch. The right- hander allowed seven runs over a combined 20 2/3 innings of work in recording three straight no-decisions to begin July, and enters tonight's test off his first victory in nearly two months.

Davies was reached for four runs and served up three homers in Saturday's matchup with the New York Yankees, but received a wealth of offensive support in Kansas City's 7-4 verdict over the defending world champions. He had not won in eight straight starts that followed a May 28 besting of Boston.

The 26-year-old hasn't won at home since April 26, though, and is just 1-4 with a 5.11 earned run average in eight trips to the Kauffman Stadium mound so far this season.

Davies will be attempting to duplicate a mid-May triumph over the Orioles in which he held tonight's opponent to two runs in six innings. He's 2-1 in four overall encounters with Baltimore, but has registered a poor 6.65 ERA over those games.

While Davies was able to end a lengthy winless drought his last time out, Baltimore's Brian Matusz has had trouble coming out on top all throughout his difficult 2009 campaign. The preseason Rookie of the Year candidate takes the hill tonight having lost 11 of 12 decisions since starting out the season with a pair of victories.

Matusz seemed to get back on track when he fired seven shutout innings to defeat Boston on July 4, but the highly-regarded lefty has gone 0-2 with a brutal 12.10 ERA in three starts since. He gave up three runs in five innings of a loss to Minnesota last Saturday, still a major improvement over a horrid 1 2/3-inning stint against Toronto in which the former first-round draft pick was shelled for six runs on five hits.

This will be the first career start against the Royals for Matusz, who's notched all three of his wins this season on the road.

These teams split a pair of meetings in Baltimore back in May, as well as a four-game series held at Kauffman Stadium last season.

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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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