Valencia, Twins stay hot in rout of Royals

Baseball Betting Lines

07/28/2010 - Kansas City, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Danny Valencia knocked in three and collected four more hits while Carl Pavano turned in his eighth consecutive winning decision in an 11-2 Twins victory over Kansas City.

Valencia was coming off a 4-for-4 performance in Monday's 19-1 shellacking of the Royals and is 8-for-9 in the series. Joe Mauer, who was 5-for-5 with a career-high seven RBI on Monday, drove in another two runs with two hits in the middle test to this three-game set.

J.J. Hardy hit a solo home run and added a run-scoring single amid a three-hit game and Michael Cuddyer added three hits and two RBI to the win, Minnesota's fourth straight and sixth in the last seven games.

The Twins have racked up 47 runs and 72 hits over their current four-game torrent and reached double-digit runs for the third straight game. Over the last seven games, Minnesota has outscored the competition 60-12.

Pavano (13-6), meanwhile, reached 98 pitches in five innings, but held the Royals to five hits and a run over that time to stretch an unbeaten streak to 10 starts dating back to June 9. The Twins have gone 9-1 in those games.

Bruce Chen (5-5) was knocked around for 11 hits and six runs in 5 1/3 innings to take the loss, Kansas City's fifth in six games. Scott Podsednik had two hits and drove in a run, extending his hitting streak to 14 games.

Minnesota paced itself in the early going with a mere four runs in the first three innings. Cuddyer chased home Mauer with a two-out single and Valencia did the same to score Delmon Young in the game's first frame.

Valencia and Hardy had back-to-back RBI singles with one out in the third for a 4-0 margin. Jose Guillen interrupted the visitors' scoring with a sacrifice fly in the fifth, but the Twins were right back at it in their next at-bat. Jason Repko singled in Drew Butera and Mauer added a sac fly in the sixth after Kyle Farnsworth took over for Chen.

Podsednik knocked in Alex Gordon with a two-out hit in the bottom half, but Hardy blasted a home run off Robinson Tejeda in the seventh to erase the run and make it 7-2.

Minnesota tacked on four more in the eighth as Mauer, Young, Cuddyer and Valencia strung together consecutive two-out RBI hits off Victor Marte.

Game Notes

The Twins had 19 hits Tuesday a night after tying their season high with 20. Young had two hits and scored three runs...Minnesota improved to 9-3 since the All-Star break...Pavano walked three and struck out two. He had pitched into the seventh inning in each of his previous 12 trips to the mound. The veteran right-hander has also won five straight decisions on the road, where he's compiled a 7-3 record in 11 starts thus far in 2010. It was Pavano's fourth overall matchup with the Royals this season, as he improved to 3-1 in 2010 and 7-5 in 13 lifetime games (12 starts) against them...The Twins have won eight of 10 versus the Royals this year, as well as 16 of the last 20 overall meetings between the teams. Minnesota is also 18-5 at Kauffman Stadium since the start of the 2008 season.

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What Is the Point Spread?

What are Sports Betting Point Spreads?

In any football or basketball game (the main sports that use point spreads) there are two teams playing against each other.

Those teams, though, are rarely exactly evenly matched – meaning that typically one team has a better chance than the other to win the game. If bettors were allowed to bet on who was simply going to win the game, smart ones would obviously bet on the better team (likely winning more than 50% of the time in the process).

If winning were that easy the Las Vegas and online sportsbooks would stop taking any bets! This is where the point spread comes in: the basic function of the point spread is to balance the likelihood of each team “winning” by adjusting the final score by the point spread. After this adjustment is made you get the Against The Spread result (ATS result for short).

Let’s look at Super Bowl XXXIX, New England Patriots vs. Philadelphia Eagles. Most people believed the defending champ Patriots to be the better team – so if betting were simply based upon which team would win the game, an uneven majority of people would have wagered on New England. But, by using the point spread, the bookmakers adjusted the terms of the bet, evening the proposition so about half the people believed the Pats to be the smart bet, while the other half considered Philly to be the smart bet.

How to Read Point Spreads

New England Patriots -7 vs. Philadelphia Eagles

The better team, called the Favorite, is expected to win the game and must “give” or “lay” points to the weaker team. The favorite is listed with a minus sign and the number of points they are favored by (e.g., New England -7)

In the case of our example, New England must not only win the game, but they must win by more than 7 points for Pats bettors to have a winning ATS result. An Eagles bettor wins his bet either if:

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