Giants, Posey aim to keep rolling in finale with Marlins

Baseball Betting Lines

07/29/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Buster Posey tries to match a San Francisco rookie record by hitting in his 22nd straight game this afternoon, while fellow rookie Madison Bumgarner shoots for a fifth straight win when the San Francisco Giants complete a four-game series with the Florida Marlins at AT&T Park.

Posey's streak, which is the longest in the National League this season, is one short of Willie McCovey's 22-game tear for San Francisco in 1959. It is also the seventh of 20 or more games in San Francisco history.

Jack Clark holds the San Francisco club record by hitting in 26 straight in 1978.

Posey went 1-for-4 on Wednesday, but Andres Torre's bases-loaded single in the 10th inning capped a four-hit day and propelled the Giants to a 10-9 win. Torres added a two-run homer and Juan Uribe had three hits and drove in four runs for San Francisco, which has won six of its last seven games but blew a 9-2 lead after six innings in this one.

"Guys were just grinding out at-bats, pitchers are giving everything they got, attacking the zone," Posey said. "I think guys believe that we're going to win. That's the biggest thing."

Posey's streak tied Kansas City's Jose Guillen, who had a 21-game streak earlier this season, as the second-longest of 2010 and now is two back of Texas' Josh Hamilton's season-long 23-game streak.

"It's cool, it's fun," Posey said afterward. "But it's hard to talk about myself when we just won a great game.'

Florida's Dan Uggla homered for the sixth time in as many games and tied the contest with an RBI double with two outs in the ninth inning. He has 143 homers for his career, tying the Marlins team record set by Mike Lowell. Pinch-hitter Donnie Murphy added a three-run homer and Ronny Paulino clubbed a solo shot for the Marlins.

"It's tough, coming back all the way from 9-2 and losing," Murphy said. "I'd almost lose 9-2 than to come back that much and lose. I'm really happy with the way we came back and the effort we put into it."

Bumgarner, meanwhile, won his fourth straight start on Saturday in Arizona, holding the Diamondbacks to two runs and five hits in seven innings to up his season record to 4-2 to go along with a 2.43 ERA. This will be his first start against the Marlins.

Florida will counter with righty Anibal Sanchez, who is 7-6 with a 3.59 ERA. Sanchez did not get a decision on Saturday against Atlanta, as he allowed two runs and five hits in six innings of a 10-5 loss.

Sanchez did not get a decision against San Francisco earlier in the year in his only other appearance against the Giants.

San Francisco swept a three-game set from the Marlins from May 4-6 and has won seven of the last nine meetings in the series.

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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