Thomas homers twice as Blue Jays top Twins

Baseball Betting Lines

07/24/2007 - Toronto, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Frank Thomas hit a pair of two-run home runs as the Toronto Blue Jays downed the Minnesota Twins, 6-4, in the opener of a three-game set.

Thomas, who has 503 career home runs, is now just one home run behind Eddie Murray for a tie of 20th place on the all-time list.

Alex Rios and Reed Johnson each hit solo home runs for the Blue Jays, who have won three straight.

Shaun Marcum (6-4) got the win as he gave up four runs on eight hits with three strikeouts in six innings.

Justin Morneau hit two home runs and had three RBI, and Torii Hunter added a solo shot for the Twins, who have dropped five of their last seven contests.

Johan Santana (11-8) got the loss as he was rocked for six runs on seven hits in five innings.

The Blue Jays jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning. Johnson led off the frame by hitting a 1-0 low fastball into the left field stands. After the next two batters recorded outs, Vernon Wells kept the inning alive with a single and Thomas followed by hitting the ball over the center field wall.

Morneau got the Twins on the board in the second inning when he started the inning with a home run to left-center.

Rios got Toronto another run in the bottom of the third as he led off the inning with a homer to left and a 4-1 lead.

Minnesota made it a one-run game in the fourth as Joe Mauer started the inning with a triple and Morneau followed with his second home run of the game to make it a 4-3 contest.

The Blue Jays, though, made it a 6-3 game in the fifth when Thomas hit a two- run shot over the left-center wall for his second home run of the game.

The balls continued to fly out of the park as Hunter hit a two-out homer in sixth to cut the Twins deficit to 6-4.

That was as close as the Twins got, though. Casey Janssen pitched a scoreless seventh and got two outs in the eighth before Scott Downs recorded the final out of the inning. Jeremy Accardo got around a leadoff double to Hunter in the ninth by retiring the final three batters and pick up his 16th save of the season.

Game Notes

Each team has won four games in the season series...Marcum is 1-1 in three career games against the Twins...Santana is 2-4 in 10 career appearances against the Blue Jays...Thomas has 16 home runs on the season...Morneau has 28 homers and 85 RBI this season...Attendance was 26,091.

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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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