Twins, Liriano aim to keep rolling in Kansas City

Baseball Betting Lines

07/26/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Minnesota Twins had everything working on Sunday as they pulled even closer to the top spot in the American League Central.

They'll try to continue that tonight behind Francisco Liriano, who seeks a third straight winning start in the opener of a three-game series versus the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium.

The Twins took three of four from the lowly Baltimore Orioles, winning Sunday's finale 10-4 to get within one game of the first-place Chicago White Sox in the AL Central. Minnesota has won four of five overall.

Jason Kubel hit the seventh grand slam of his career and Delmon Young and Jim Thome added back-to-back homers in the sixth inning for Minnesota. Nick Punto posted three of the Twins' 19 hits on the day, which was plenty of offense for Kevin Slowey. The right-hander gave up just one run and five hits over six innings.

"They're kind of clicking at the right time," Thome said of the team's pitching and hitting. "Maybe we can get on a roll like that and get going. If we take care of our own business and focus every day on what we want to accomplish, hopefully we'll be where we want to be at the end."

The Twins won despite being without four regulars on Sunday. Second baseman Orlando Hudson sat out with a right oblique strain that forced him to the disabled list following the game, while center fielder Denard Span was out due to illness. Catcher Joe Mauer and shortstop J.J. Hardy also did not start, as manager Ron Gardenhire chose to rest the two.

Liriano should at least have Mauer and Hardy back in the lineup tonight as he seeks to improve on his 8-7 record and 3.54 earned run average on the season. He snapped a four-decision losing streak with 7 2/3 innings of two-run ball versus the White Sox on July 16, then hurled seven scoreless frames of six- hit, four-walk ball versus Cleveland on Wednesday. The left-hander struck out eight batters for a second start in a row as well.

The 26-year-old Liriano is 3-3 with a 4.84 ERA in nine career meetings versus the Royals, six of those starts. He faces them for the first time in 2010 tonight.

The Twins have gotten a pair of looks at tonight's starter for the Royals, Zack Greinke, and have posted eight earned runs over 10 innings in beating the 2009 AL Cy Young Award winner both times. Kubel, Span and Michael Cuddyer are a combined 8-for-16 with a homer and nine RBI versus Greinke, who is 3-6 with a 4.32 ERA lifetime versus Minnesota.

The 26-year-old former first-round pick has won five of his last six decisions and bounced back from a loss to Oakland on July 16 with a victory over Toronto on Wednesday. Lasting at least seven innings for the sixth time in seven outings, Greinke notched eight innings of two-run ball versus the Blue Jays, yielding six hits without a walk while striking out nine.

Greinke, a right-hander, improved to 6-9 with a 3.59 ERA this year.

The Royals return home after losing three of four to the Yankees in the Bronx, dropping Sunday's finale, 12-6.

Kansas City's Scott Podsednik homered twice and matched a career high with four RBI, stretching his hitting streak to 12 games. Rick Ankiel added a homer for the Royals, who have lost 10 of their last 13.

Sean O'Sullivan, in his first start with Kansas City since being acquired by the franchise from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, yielded five runs over five innings of work, while the Royals' relief group was tagged for seven runs, six of those earned.

"When we were really going good, we were real successful in the back end of our bullpen down two, three runs," said Royals' manager Ned Yost. "The bullpen guys were coming in and holding and giving us an opportunity to get back in the game. That's been a problem for us lately."

The Twins have won six of nine versus the Royals this year and 14 of the last 18 meetings overall between the teams. Minnesota is also 16-5 at Kauffman Stadium since the start of the 2008 season.

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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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