Mets swat Nats to complete sweep

Baseball Betting Lines

08/19/2007 - Washington, DC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Carlos Beltran went deep twice and knocked in four runs as the New York Mets pulled away late to down the Washington Nationals, 8-2, and complete a three-game sweep at RFK Stadium.

Shawn Green and Marlon Anderson each knocked in a pair of runs in the eighth inning for the Mets, who have won six of seven.

Orlando Hernandez (8-4) pitched seven solid innings to pick up the win and extend his unbeaten streak to eight straight starts. The veteran right-hander gave up two runs on three hits with four strikeouts and four walks.

Wily Mo Pena, acquired from Boston on Friday, hit his first home run with the Nationals, who have lost four straight overall.

Washington starter Shawn Hill matched Hernandez with seven strong inning, yielding seven hits and two runs.

However, with the score knotted at 2-2 in the eighth, New York took advantage of Washington's bullpen to take the lead.

Jon Rauch (8-4) replaced Shawn Hill on the mound and Luis Castillo greeted him with a leadoff single. David Wright followed with a double and Rauch intentionally walked Beltran to load the bases.

Green came through with a single up the middle that chased two runs home. Then, after Lastings Milledge struck out, Anderson's double over the head of Pena brought two more runs home to make it 6-2 New York

Chris Schroder took over for Rauch to stop the bleeding in the eighth, but Beltran crushed a two-run shot with two outs in the ninth to hand the Mets a six-run cushion.

New York struck in the first inning as Castillo walked, Wright singled to put runners on the corners and Beltran followed with a fly ball to left that plated Castillo.

The Nationals answered as Ryan Zimmerman's two-out RBI single in third tied the game and Pena's home run in the fourth gave Washington the lead.

Beltran responded with a home run in the sixth to tie the game at 2-2.

Game Notes

Before the game, New York placed infielder Damion Easley on the 15-day disabled list with a Grade 3 left ankle sprain and recalled infielder Anderson Hernandez from Triple-A New Orleans...Anderson finished 3-for-4 with two doubles, while Beltran scored three runs...Attendance was 29,092.

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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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