Dice-K strong as Red Sox stay hot in Beantown

Baseball Betting Lines

05/11/2010 - Boston, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Daisuke Matsuzaka threw seven strong innings as the Boston Red Sox downed the Toronto Blue Jays, 6-1, in the second of a three-game set at Fenway Park.

Matsuzaka (2-1) gave up just one run on three hits with no walks and a season- high nine strikeouts for the Red Sox, who have won three straight and seven of nine. Jason Varitek went 2-for-3 with a solo home run and two runs scored.

Fred Lewis drove in the lone run while John Buck went 2-for-3 with a run scored for the Blue Jays, who have dropped three of four. Dana Eveland (3-2) went four-plus innings in the start and was charged with six runs -- five earned -- on five hits with four walks and two strikeouts.

The Red Sox worked a pair of runs across in the first inning. Marco Scutaro led off with a walk and Dustin Pedroia followed with a ground-rule double. J.D. Drew brought home the first run when he grounded out to first and Kevin Youkilis followed with a sacrifice fly to right for a 2-0 lead.

Boston made it a 3-0 game in the second as Varitek smoked a one-out, 2-0 pitch over the Green Monster for his sixth home run of the season.

Boston loaded the bases in the third with one out, but Mike Lowell hit into a double play to end the inning.

However, the Red Sox padded their lead with another run in the fourth inning. With one out, Varitek singled and Bill Hall followed with a blooper to right- center that fell between three Jays and Vernon Wells was charged with the error. Darnell McDonald then doubled to left to score Varitek.

Meanwhile, Matsuzaka was cruising through his start. Through five innings, he gave up just a one-out single to Buck in the third inning.

Boston got two more runs in the fifth as a wild pitch from Shawn Camp scored Drew and Hall later hit into a fielder's choice that scored Youkilis for a 6-0 lead.

Toronto finally got to Matsuzaka in the sixth. Buck led off with a double and moved to third on a wild pitch. After Travis Snider struck out, Lewis doubled off the wall in center to plate Buck. Matsuzaka, though, got Aaron Hill to foul out and Adam Lind to strike out to end the frame.

Ramon Ramirez gave up a two-out walk to Snider and a single to Lewis in the eighth, but then got Hill to ground out.

Hideki Okajima then tossed a 1-2-3 ninth inning to close out the win.

Game Notes

Lewis extended his hitting streak to eight games while Buck stretched his to six...Boston has won five straight against Toronto and 11 of the past 14...Matsuzaka is 5-1 over eight games against Toronto...Eveland fell to 0-3 in five starts against Boston...Youkilis went 0-for-1 in the game and had a nine-game hit streak end while Scutaro finished 0-for-3 and had an eight-game hit streak stopped.

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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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