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08/23/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - After two of the Atlanta Braves' young guns led the way in a one-sided victory on Sunday, the team will turn to one of its established stars in hopes of getting a three-game road series with the Colorado Rockies off to a good beginning.
Tim Hudson gets the call for Atlanta in tonight's opener and will be out to continue an outstanding string of recent starts. The veteran ace has amassed a 5-0 record along with an astounding 0.82 earned run average over his last six outings, lasting at least seven innings and yielding two runs or less on each of those occasions.
Hudson did see his five-start win streak come to an end in Wednesday's matchup with Washington, but still held the Nationals to two runs over seven innings while not getting a decision. The Braves won that game by a 3-2 count and have prevailed in eight of the All-Star hurler's last 10 trips to the mound.
The 35-year-old is 14-5 over his 25 starts this season, while his 2.15 ERA trails only St. Louis' Adam Wainwright for tops in the National League.
Hudson hasn't fared well in the past at hitter-friendly Coors Field, however. In two previous assignments at the venue, he's been tagged for 13 runs and a whopping 19 hits in just nine innings while losing both times. Overall against the Rockies, he's 3-2 with a 4.65 over five starts.
Atlanta may not have to worry about Hudson struggling if its offense performs like it did on Sunday, when the current NL East leaders banged out 13 hits and swatted four home runs in a 16-5 rout of Chicago that turned out to be the final game for Cubs manager Lou Piniella.
Rookies Jason Heyward and Mike Minor were two of the standouts for the Braves in yesterday's big win. Heyward had the first two-homer game of his big league career and finished 4-for-4 with four RBI and four runs scored, while Minor struck out 12 Chicago hitters in six innings to pick up the win.
Minor did allow an early two-run homer to Aramis Ramirez and three runs over the game's first three innings, but settled down afterward to improve to 2-0 in three starts since being promoted from the minors earlier this month.
Omar Infante also had a big day at the plate for Atlanta, which won for the ninth time in its past 12 games. The valuable utilityman, who's taken over as the regular third baseman following Chipper Jones' season-ending knee injury, went 4-for-6 with a pair of homers and four RBI while scoring four times.
Sunday's effort raised Infante's season average to .349 and extended his hitting streak to 11 games, with the 2010 All-Star batting .447 (21-for-47) with three homers over that tear.
Derrek Lee, acquired by the Braves from the Cubs earlier in the week, knocked in three runs against his former team on Sunday, with Alex Gonzalez contributing a two-RBI single to Atlanta's offensive outburst.
"We were hitting the ball really good today," Braves manager Bobby Cox said afterward. "We had some guys with great games out there today, and whenever you have hitting like that you win more often than not."
With the win, Atlanta remained 2 1/2 games ahead of Philadelphia for first place in the NL East.
Colorado received some impressive pitching from one of its rookies as well on Sunday, with youngster Jhoulys Chacin firing 7 2/3 shutout innings to lead his club to a 1-0 verdict over Arizona at Chase Field.
Chacin (6-9) surrendered just three singles and a walk while striking out nine Diamondbacks before exiting with two outs and a man on in the eighth. Joe Beimel came on to get the final out of the frame and preserve the one-run margin, with Huston Street then tossing a perfect ninth to notch his 10th save and end the Rockies' three-game losing streak.
"If [Chacin] commands his fastball like he did today, you're in trouble," Rockies manager Jim Tracy remarked after the game. "That's how good his stuff is."
Dexter Fowler ended 2-for-3 for Colorado and drove in the game's only run with a single in the top of the eighth. The hit plated Eric Young Jr., who had singled with one out and stole second to move into scoring position.
Jason Hammel will try to make it two wins in a row for Colorado when he opposes Hudson tonight, with the Rockies starter also seeking to improve his already-strong numbers at Coors Field. The right-hander is 6-1 with a 3.36 ERA over 11 home starts this season and hasn't lost in Denver since an April 26 setback to the Diamondbacks.
Hammel's last three starts have come on the road and he compiled a 1-1 record with a 4.26 ERA over that stretch. After being reached for four runs in seven innings of a loss to the New York Mets on August 12, he rebounded to limit the Dodgers to two runs and just four hits in a six-inning no-decision this past Wednesday.
The 27-year-old, who's 8-7 with a 4.36 ERA in 22 overall starts this season, also hopes to atone for a poor showing against the Braves back on April 16. In that game Hammel was battered for seven runs and eight hits before being lifted after only 1 2/3 innings, with the result raising his ERA to an ugly 12.66 in three career matchups with Atlanta. He's 0-2 lifetime versus the Braves.
Atlanta won two of three bouts in that early-season series at Turner Field and split a four-game set with the Rockies in Denver last season.
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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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