Red Sox seek to build off needed win over Blue Jays

Baseball Betting Lines

07/10/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Boston Red Sox halted a four-game losing skid yesterday and will attempt to make it two wins in a row over the Toronto Blue Jays this afternoon in American League East action from the Rogers Centre.

Boston will give the ball to big righty John Lackey this afternoon. Lackey is coming off a loss to Baltimore, widely considered the worst team in baseball, but he only allowed three earned runs in 7 1/3 innings in that tilt. He is now 9-4 overall with a 4.40 ERA and has given up three earned runs or fewer in five of his last six starts.

Lackey beat Toronto earlier this season despite getting smacked around for six earned runs on eight hits in six innings. For his career, the veteran hurler is 4-3 with a 3.74 ERA versus the Blue Jays.

Slated to oppose Lackey will be Brandon Morrow, a fellow righty who is 5-6 with a 4.69 ERA in 17 appearances this season. Morrow allowed five earned runs on nine hits at Yankee Stadium on Sunday and was handed a no-decision, but it should be noted that he may have earned a win if not for a misplayed fly ball. With 107 strikeouts in 96 innings of work, Morrow certainly has outstanding stuff.

In his only previous appearance against Boston this season, Morrow was rocked for six earned runs in just 1 2/3 innings of work on May 10. He walked six batters in that forgettable outing.

On Friday, Bill Hall finished 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles, a two-run homer and drove in four runs as Boston torched Toronto, 14-3, in the opener of this series.

Mike Cameron went 3-for-4 with a solo shot and knocked in three runs while scoring three times for the Red Sox. Kevin Youkilis homered and added two RBI, while Adrian Beltre also went deep and crossed the plate three times in the rout.

"Coming off a big series with Tampa Bay where we didn't do too well, we come in and were able to get a lot of guys on base and do some good things offensively," Hall said of the offensive explosion.

Jon Lester (11-3) yielded four hits and a pair of runs with six strikeouts over six strong innings to earn the victory for Boston, which finally rewarded manager Terry Francona with his 900th career win.

John McDonald and Jose Molina both homered for the Blue Jays, who saw their two-game win streak snapped and lost for the fourth time in six games. Ricky Romero (6-6) was ripped in defeat for five hits and nine runs -- five earned -- with a trio of walks over just 2 1/3 frames.

The Red Sox set a new season-best for runs in a game. Their previous high was 13, last reached in a 13-11 win in 10 innings at Colorado on June 24.

The Red Sox have beaten Toronto in six of seven matchups this year and 12 of the past 16 meetings overall. Boston swept Toronto in three games at the Rogers Centre from April 26-28 and has now won six straight as the visitor in this series. They've also held the Blue Jays to two runs or less four times during that win streak.

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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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