This week in baseball

By Jeff Haney

Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009 | 2 a.m.

The Minnesota Twins opened as a minus 155 favorite (risk $1.55 to net $1) against the Detroit Tigers (plus 145), with an over/under of 8 1/2 runs, in today’s “Game No. 163,” a one-game playoff to determine which team will face the Yankees in baseball’s postseason.

In wagering on the first five full innings, the Twins are favored by minus 155 again, with an over/under of 4 1/2 runs, according to odds at the Las Vegas Hilton sports book.

A proposition asks whether at least one run will be scored in the first inning. It’s minus 130 on the “no” and plus 110 on the “yes.”

Expect the favored Yankees to open in the range of minus 300 in the divisional playoff series against either team from the American League Central division.

The Phillies and Cardinals opened as betting favorites in their National League divisional playoff series, with Philadelphia a minus 165 selection against the Colorado Rockies and St. Louis a minus 140 choice against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Regardless of which team prevails in the AL Central, the Cardinals and Rockies will enter the playoffs as the two major surprise teams of the postseason, vis-a-vis betting odds. St. Louis, the NL Central champ, opened as a 5-1 shot to win the division, according to odds posted at the Hilton in March.

The Rockies, who qualified via a wild card after finishing second to the Dodgers in the NL West, opened with an over/under in Las Vegas of just 76 1/2 to 78 regular-season wins. Colorado easily exceeded those expectations, finishing the regular season 92-70.

By comparison, the Phillies were a 9-5 shot to win the NL East and the Dodgers were an 8-5 shot to win the NL West.

In the AL, the Twins opened at 5-2 and the Tigers at 3-1 to win the AL Central. The Yankees (6-5) and the Angels (5-9) were solid preseason favorites in the AL East and AL West.

Fight game

Top Rank star Juan Manuel Lopez (26-0, 24 knockouts) puts his junior featherweight title on the line Saturday against Rogers Mtagwa (26-12-2, 18 KOs) in the headliner of the 12th edition of the popular Latin Fury promotion in New York.

This one is a non-betting fight, but it could lead to a showdown against featherweight champ Yuriorkis Gamboa, who also fights on the pay-per-view card.

In one stretch in 2007 and 2008, Lopez reeled off four first-round knockouts in seven fights.

“There are two kinds of clocks with these young fighters in this business,” Top Rank president Todd duBoef said. “One is their marketability clock and one is their boxing ability clock. When we have a guy that is in the epicenter of these big fights being done with the different types of opponents that he has in front of him, we have to take both of those things into consideration.

“Mtagwa is going to be a fight that you are on pins and needles with. He had a run of three or four first-round knockouts and that was great for his marketability, but the truth is, what did it do for his boxing ability? We don’t know. So these types of matches are the types that will test him, make him a better fighter and an attraction at the same time.”

Presidents Cup

The American team is a strong betting favorite to capture this year’s Presidents Cup, scheduled for Thursday through Sunday at Harding Park Golf Course in San Francisco.

The U.S. team, captained by Fred Couples, is a minus 300 favorite, according Hilton odds Monday. That’s up from an opener of minus 240. (As always, odds are subject to change.)

The international team, with Greg Norman at the helm, is listed as a plus 250 underdog.

A biennial event, the Presidents Cup pits 12 top American golfers against 12 non-European players from outside the U.S. in a match-play format.

Paddy wags

I’ve lobbied for Nevada gaming interests to relax the state’s prohibition on wagering on non-sports events such as the Academy Awards. I’ve been critical of Las Vegas oddsmakers who release pretend lines on reality shows without taking money on them (and of the media that “report” them).

But this sort of makes me appreciate the state’s conservative approach: Dublin-based bookmaker Paddy Power has posted odds on where the next “official” sighting of the Virgin Mary in Ireland will occur (the sighting must be reported by Ireland’s RTE News).

Prompted by an alleged Mary sighting recently in Donegal, Paddy oddsmakers made Knock Shrine, appropriately enough, a 5-1 favorite of nine possible sighting sites. My personal favorite is the Galway Races, bet down to 50-1 from a 100-1 opener.

Gambling has long intertwined with the Catholic mythos, of course. Think bingo. In fact, to bring it back around to postseason baseball, 30 years ago this month I lost 50 cents on the Orioles against the Pirates in a school-yard wager — though I would make it all back and more playing pull tabs at the parish Christmas bazaar.