Sabathia gets win No. 13 as Indians edge Rangers

Baseball Betting Lines

07/20/2007 - Arlington, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Grady Sizemore homered and drove in a pair of runs, and C.C. Sabathia picked up his major league leading 13th win as Cleveland bested Texas, 7-5, in the opener of a four-game set.

Trot Nixon and Ben Francisco also drove in a pair of runs apiece for the Indians, who won for the second time in three games.

Sabathia (13-4), who was coming off back-to-back subpar starts, was steady if not spectacular in allowing four runs -- three earned -- on nine hits in six innings.

Gerald Laird hit a two-run homer for the Rangers, who have lost two straight after winning the previous three. Travis Metcalf and Mark Teixeira drove in a run apiece for Texas,

Kameron Loe (5-8) was touched for six runs on six hits in six innings of work en route to the loss.

With the game even at four, Cleveland took the lead for good with a pair of runs in the fifth. Sizemore led off the frame by blasting his 16th homer of the year to right. Casey Blake followed with a triple to left and eventually scored on Ryan Garko's ground ball to second to make it a 6-4 game.

The Indians carved out an insurance run in the eighth when Garko ripped a ground-rule double to center and, a batter later, Francisco rapped an RBI single up the middle.

The Rangers threatened in the ninth off Joe Borowski. Kenny Lofton got on with a one-out bunt single and swiped second before scoring on Teixeira's two-out single to right. Borowski settled down from there and got Sammy Sosa swinging to end things and pick up his 27th save of the year.

The Indians jumped on top with a four-spot in the second. Cleveland quickly loaded the bases when Travis Hafner singled, Jhonny Peralta was hit by a pitch and Garko walked. Nixon then put two runs on the board with a double to left. Francisco followed by lofting a sacrifice fly to right and Sizemore capped the frame by slapping an one-out RBI single up the middle.

Texas immediately answered with three runs of its own in the home half of the second. Brad Wilkerson got on with a two-out double and Laird followed by lacing his sixth homer of the year over the wall in center. Ramon Vazquez kept the inning going with another two-bagger and scored when Sabathia threw Metcalf's comebacker away.

The Rangers evened things in the fourth. Texas loaded the bases on a Wilkerson walk and consecutive bunt singles by Laird and Vazquez. Metcalf tied it with a sac fly to center but any further damage for the Indians was averted when Lofton grounded into a 4-6-3 twin-killing.

Game Notes

Rangers All-Star shortstop Michael Young will miss the first two games of the series while he attends a funeral in Southern California...The Rangers placed pitcher Akinori Otsuka on the 15-day disabled list before the game with right forearm inflammation. The move is retroactive to July 9. To replace Otsuka on the roster, the Rangers recalled pitcher Scott Feldman from Triple-A Oklahoma.

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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.

NFL Betting Lines

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