Rockies hope to stay hot versus Reds

Baseball Betting Lines

09/07/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Colorado Rockies have put together a couple of strong Septembers over the past few years. They've been even more successful in recent meetings with the Cincinnati Reds at Coors Field.

Colorado shoots for an eighth consecutive win over the Reds in Denver, as well as a fifth straight victory overall, when the resurgent Rockies continue a key four-game series with first-place Cincinnati tonight.

The Rockies, who won 14 of their final 15 regular-season tests to claim the National League's Wild Card berth in 2007 and went 10-1 to begin September of last season en route to another postseason trip, seem to be at it again. Monday's 10-5 decision over the Reds was Colorado's 10th victory in its past 15 tilts and kept Jim Tracy's squad 4 1/2 games behind front-running San Diego in the NL West race.

"We feel like we control our own destiny," said Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki after Monday's result. "We play the guys in front of us enough. If we play well and win the series each and every time we're going to move on."

Tulowitzki went 2-for-3 with a homer and three RBI in the opener to help ace Ubaldo Jimenez earn his 18th win of the season, while teammate Carlos Gonzalez kept up his hot hitting with a 3-for-5, two-RBI performance at the plate. The standout outfielder is batting a sensational .536 (30-for-56) with six homers and 18 runs driven in over a career-high 14-game hitting streak that has raised his season average to an NL-best .340.

Jimenez (18-6) became the first NL hurler to reach the 18-win mark on the year despite allowing four runs and walking six batters over six shaky innings. The 2010 All-Star still outpitched counterpart Aaron Harang, who lasted just 2 1/3 innings for Cincinnati and was roughed up for four runs on four hits and walked three.

Bill Bray (1-2) took the loss for the Reds after surrendering three runs, including Tulowitzki's tie-breaking solo homer in the bottom of the fifth, in 1 2/3 innings of relief.

Jonny Gomes paced Cincinnati offensively by going 2-for-5 with a two-run single, while teammate Chris Heisey finished with a pair of hits and scored twice on the afternoon.

The Reds have now dropped three of the first four contests on their current seven-game road trip and had its lead atop the NL Central brought down to six games after second-place St. Louis defeated Milwaukee on Monday.

The setback was also Cincinnati's seventh in a row at Coors Field, where the club hasn't won since August 22, 2008. Although the Reds did take two of three bouts from the Rockies in Ohio back in July, Colorado is now 16-3 in its last 19 matchups with Cincy following yesterday's verdict.

Cincinnati turns to Johnny Cueto in hopes of reversing those trends this evening. The young right-hander has put his team in position to win plenty of times this season, having compiled a 12-4 record along with a 3.41 earned run average through his 26 starts of 2010.

Cueto has been on top of his game in each of his past two outings. He held the Chicago Cubs to one run and struck out eight without a walk over eight excellent innings in a victory on August 27, then yielded just one run in six frames in a no-decision against Milwaukee this past Wednesday.

This will be Cueto's second-ever appearance against the Rockies. The first took place at Coors Field during his rookie campaign of 2008, with the now 24- year-old removed after issuing three walks and giving up an unearned run in only three innings of work.

Jhoulys Chacin gets the call for Colorado tonight and will be aiming to return to the win column following a no-decision in his latest assignment. The rookie did not factor in his club's 12-11 loss to Philadelphia on Thursday, a game in which he pitched the first 5 1/3 innings and permitted three runs, two of which were unearned.

Chacin was outstanding in each of his two starts that preceded Thursday's outcome. After fanning nine Arizona hitters over 7 2/3 shutout innings to beat the Diamondbacks on August 22, the 24-year-old limited the Los Angeles Dodgers to a run on four hits and struck out seven in seven frames to notch another victory six days later.

The native Venezuelan has pitched twice previously against Cincinnati in a relief role, including a 2 1/3-inning stint on July 17 in which he struck out four hitters in addition to giving up a solo homer to Gomes.

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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.

NFL Betting Lines

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