Wick's two home runs power Canada over Italy
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07/31/2010 - Thunder Bay, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - With upsets aplenty and coming off a scare of their own, Team Canada wasn't taking any chances against an overmatched Italian squad in the quarterfinals of the World Junior Baseball Championships.
A day after nearly losing to a winless Czech Republic team, coach Greg Hamilton made sure his team treated their matchup as if it was the last game they would play.
"We tried to take a business-like approach," said Hamilton, after his team eliminated Italy with an 11-1 thrashing on Friday night. "I think everybody realizes what's at stake.
"That game [versus the Czechs] served as an eye opener, it served as a lesson and I think we took the lesson well."
One player taking notes was outfielder Rowan Wick, who entered the game just 5- for-17 for the tournament with no home runs and two runs batted in.
The left-handed hitting slugger changed that in a hurry, evident by the rocket shot he lined over the right field fence in a five-run first inning that buried the Italians in a flash.
"You want to get out early," said Hamilton. "You want to take away any life that they might have or any enthusiasm that they might have out of the equation.
"It makes it a whole lot easier when you get some runs on the board early."
Wick added another homer in the fifth, finishing the game 3-for-4 with four RBI and more importantly, a hot bat heading into championship weekend.
"He's a guy that we really counted on coming through the process, a guy we felt would be a key contributor," said Hamilton of the North Vancouver, B.C. native.
"He was struggling a little bit as we went through our tour [pre-Worlds] but he's really starting to dial it in, he's locked in and he's swinging the bat really well.
"He's a guy that can turn a game around with one swing."
Wick got some help along the way from a team that appears to be clicking at just the right time.
Backed by an impressive outing from Jonathan Pacquet (1-0), who breezed through six innings of one-run ball, Team Canada is now one step closer to its second world junior title.
Pacquet was dominant against an Italian squad that didn't stand much of a chance against the towering 6'4", 193-pound righthander from Ancienne Lorette, Que.
"I had good control of my pitches," said Paquet. "I went straight at these guys."
After surrendering a pair of singles in the first, Pacquet cruised through Italy's lineup en route to nine strikeouts while scattering four hits and walking just one.
"It was great to pitch an important game like that in the Worlds," he said. "You can't compare that to any other outing I've ever pitched."
Andrea Zambelloni (0-1) took the loss for Italy, who now move on to the consolation round after winning a pair of games in round robin play and proving to be a formidable opponent. The 6'2" righthander allowed six runs -- two earned -- on six hits over four innings.
Ajax's Philip Diedrick continued his impressive showing during the tournament, driving in another three runs to bring his team-leading total to 10.
Brandon Dailey of Brantford, Ont. hit a solo home run in the seventh to mercy Italy per International Baseball Federation rules.
Following Australia's ousting of defending champion South Korea earlier in the day and Cuba's thrilling win over the United States, Hamilton is well aware of the path that's been created for his squad in Thunder Bay, Ont.
But with over 20 years experience in international baseball, Hamilton knows better than to look beyond the day at hand.
"You got to be ready to play, it's international baseball, it's a one-game shot and on any given night if you're not ready someone will get you."
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Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?
Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.
“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.
“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?
There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).
How the Opening Line Is Made
The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.
Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.
The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.
Why Sports Betting Lines Change
Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game
Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.
Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.
Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”
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