Alvarez, Pirates hang on to beat Brewers following nine-run first

Baseball Betting Lines

07/20/2010 - Pittsburgh, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Rookie Pedro Alvarez hit two homers, including his first career grand slam, as the Pittsburgh Pirates scored nine times in the first inning and held on to edge the Milwaukee Brewers, 11-9, in the second of a four-game set at PNC Park.

Alvarez knocked in five runs, while rookie Neil Walker went 5-for-5 with an RBI and run scored for Pittsburgh, which snapped a five-game losing streak to Milwaukee, but won for only the third time in its last 11 overall. Jose Tabata added a two-run double in the win.

D.J. Carrasco (2-2) was credited with the win for throwing 2 2/3 scoreless innings of relief with five strikeouts. Pirates starter Brad Lincoln labored through 2 1/3 innings, allowing nine hits and seven runs with one strikeout. Octavio Dotel recorded his 20th save of the season with a scoreless ninth.

Jim Edmonds hit a three-run homer and Ryan Braun added a two-run shot for the Brewers, who had won six of eight coming in.

Dave Bush (4-8) was raked for 10 runs -- five earned -- on nine hits with a pair of walks and as many strikeouts over four innings. The right-hander snapped a streak of six straight starts having allowed two runs or fewer.

Pittsburgh jumped all over Bush, sending 13 hitters to the plate and putting up a nine-spot in the first. The Pirates loaded the bases on back-to-back singles and a walk with one out before Alvarez cracked a 2-2 hanging curveball into the right-field seats.

Lastings Milledge then singled, moved to second on Bush's pickoff attempt and scored when Erik Kratz's grounder couldn't be handled by third baseman Casey McGehee. Ronny Cedeno reached on another error by McGehee that put runners on first and second. After Lincoln bunted the runners up a base, Tabata brought in both with a double to right. Delwyn Young and Walker added back-to-back RBI two-baggers for a 9-0 game.

It was the first time the Pirates scored nine runs in the first inning since June 8, 1989 when they scored 10 at Philadelphia, but lost the game 15-11.

Milwaukee answered with three in the second inning on run-scoring singles from Alcides Escobar, Jonathan Lucroy and Rickie Weeks.

Alvarez clubbed a homer leading off the home second to make it 10-3, but the Brewers put four up in the third. Prince Fielder and McGehee hit consecutive one-out singles before Edmonds' launched a three-run shot to center. Escobar followed with a triple and crossed the plate on Lucroy's infield single which would signal the end of the night for Lincoln.

Carrasco came on and prevented further damage with a pair of strikeouts, then tossed a scoreless fourth and fifth.

Brendan Donnelly replaced Carrasco in the sixth and walked Weeks leading off, and Braun homered to left two batters later to cut the Milwaukee deficit to 10-9. Garrett Jones' sacrifice fly in the home half put the Bucs up by two.

Evan Meek and Joel Hanrahan worked a scoreless seventh and eighth inning, respectively, bridging the gap to Dotel, who struck out the first two hitters in the ninth. The closer then served up a double to Edmonds, but fanned Escobar to end the game.

Game Notes

It was the first time the Pirates scored nine runs in the first inning at home since August 8, 1893 versus the Chicago Colts...Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen missed his second straight game with a right shoulder injury suffered on Sunday versus Houston and is listed as day-to-day...Pittsburgh manager John Russell was ejected in the top of the seventh for arguing a foul ball...Walker became the first Pirates rookie to have five hits in a game since John Wehner on July 23, 1991 against Atlanta.

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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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