Kennedy, Diamondbacks beat reeling Padres

Baseball Betting Lines

09/01/2010 - Phoenix, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ian Kennedy pitched seven solid innings and the Diamondbacks used a balanced offensive attack to defeat the reeling San Diego Padres, 7-4, in the second of three games at Chase Field.

Kennedy (9-9) allowed three runs on seven hits with five strikeouts for the Diamondbacks, who have won two straight and five of their last six games overall. Mark Reynolds hit a two-run homer while Miguel Montero and Gerardo Parra both finished with two RBI in the victory.

Starting pitcher Kevin Correia suffered the loss for the Padres, who have dropped six straight games and saw their lead atop the NL West fall to four games over San Francisco. The Giants beat the Rockies on Tuesday night.

Correia (10-10) was charged with six runs on six hits to go along with six strikeouts and three walks in 4 1/3 frames. Nick Hundley contributed two runs batted in for San Diego.

Trailing by one run, the Diamondbacks moved ahead for good with five runs in the bottom of the fifth. Kennedy drew a leadoff walk and moved to second when Stephen Drew singled. A groundout moved both runners up one base and a walk to Kelly Johnson loaded the bases.

A single by Chris Young scored Kennedy, chasing Correia, and, with the bags still loaded, a ground-rule double off the bat of Montero gave Arizona a 5-3 lead. Reynolds was then intentionally walked, which again filled the bases, and Parra's two-run single into center field allowed Young and Montero to cross the plate and capped the uprising.

Kennedy got three straight groundouts in the top of the sixth and worked out of trouble in the seventh. With runners on the corners and one out, Kennedy fanned Miguel Tejada and got Adrian Gonzalez to fly out.

After Blaine Boyer pitched an easy eighth inning for Arizona, Sam Demel found trouble to start the top of the ninth. Demel yielded a leadoff walk to Everth Cabrera, who then scored when Hundley doubled to the gap in left-center.

That brought Juan Gutierrez onto the mound. The right-hander struck out Scott Hairston and induced consecutive groundouts by David Eckstein and Tejada.

Gutierrez notched his fifth save.

The Padres scored twice in the top of the first inning. With Tejada on first base and one out, Gonzalez doubled to left field and Tejada scored. The next batter was Ryan Ludwick, whose single plated Gonzalez.

A two-run blast by Reynolds, his 32nd home run of the season, tied the score in the bottom of the second. Montero singled leading off and trotted home when Reynolds drilled a fastball over the wall in right-center field.

Hundley's RBI double in the fourth gave the visitors a 3-2 advantage.

Game Notes

Correia lost his third straight decision...The Padres, who still lead the season series with the D'Backs by a 10-7 margin, have lost six of the eight games played in Phoenix...Gonzalez has 87 RBI this 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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