07/01/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Red-hot Yankees ace CC Sabathia puts his five-start winning streak and unblemished home record on the line this afternoon against the Seattle Mariners in the finale of a three-game series from the Bronx.

Sabathia has pitched to a 2.19 earned run average during his streak and is coming off his second straight eight-inning performance. He threw eight shutout innings in a win over the Mets on June 20, then held the Dodgers to a run and four hits over eight frames in last Friday's 2-1 win at Los Angeles.

The left-hander and 2007 AL Cy Young Award winner pushed his mark to 9-3 in 16 starts and lowered his ERA to 3.49. Sabathia has been deadly at Yankee Stadium this season, going 5-0 in seven outings there. He will make his 15th career start against Seattle and has won six of 10 decisions in this series. Sabathia last faced the Mariners in a 10-1 victory back on September 19, 2009 at Safeco Field, where he allowed one unearned run in seven innings.

New York hopes to salvage the finale of this set after Seattle right-handers Cliff Lee and Felix Hernandez went the distance in back-to-back days to set up a possible sweep Thursday. Sabathia is the best candidate to pull the defending World Series champions from the grips of defeat. Javier Vazquez had a chance to do that last night, but allowed three runs over six innings of a 7-0 drubbing. Damaso Marte and Chad Gaudin both gave up two runs in relief for the Yankees, losers of two straight and three of four games.

Mark Teixeira and Colin Curtis had the only hits off of Hernandez for New York, which still leads the American League East by one game over Boston. Tampa Bay is two games off the pace in the division standings. Teixeira is riding an 11-game hitting streak in which he has three homers and 10 RBI.

"He was as good a pitcher as we've faced all year," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said of Hernandez. "Between his sinker, his changeup, curveball, I mean he was really on tonight."

Alex Rodriguez went 0-for-2 at the plate and is still six homers shy of becoming the seventh player in baseball history with 600 career home runs. Only Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr. and Sammy Sosa have achieved the feat.

Meanwhile, Hernandez became the second Seattle pitcher in as many days to throw a complete game against the Yankees, as he gave up just two hits with three walks and 11 strikeouts in winning his third straight decision. Lee threw a complete game in a 7-4 win on Tuesday.

Michael Saunders had his first multi-home run game with a solo blast and a two-run shot, while Milton Bradley went deep and Russell Branyan clubbed a two-run homer for the Mariners, who have won three of four and nine of their last 12 contests.

"I've been a lot more confident going in and not putting too much pressure on myself," said Saunders. "The beauty of playing baseball is if you have a poor game you get to come back the next day and prove yourself."

Ryan Rowland-Smith has a lot to prove when he takes the ball for the M's tonight. This may be his last start in the rotation with Erik Bedard slated to return soon from shoulder surgery. Rowland-Smith has been a major disappointment this season and can only hope to have as much success as Lee and Hernandez in this series. He is just 1-7 with a 6.18 earned run average in 16 games (13 starts) this season and previously took the hill in an 8-3 setback at Milwaukee on Friday.

The left-hander lasted 5 1/3 innings and gave up five runs on five hits and two walks with a season high-tying four strikeouts. Opponents are batting .311 off of Rowland-Smith, who is winless (0-5) in eight road starts this season.

He has faced the Yankees six times in his career (2 starts) and is 0-0 with a 5.29 ERA, spanning 17 innings pitched. However, Rowland-Smith pitched well in a 4-2 loss versus New York back on August 14 last season at Safeco Field and recorded a no-decision for tossing seven innings of two-run ball.

Seattle and New York are meeting for the first time since the Yankees won six of 10 matchups a year ago. The last time the Mariners swept the Yankees in three games in the Bronx was during the 2002 season. New York has never been swept in its new stadium.

How to bet pro football

There is little doubt that the NFL is where the sportsbooks see the most action and also make the most loot. The NFL possesses betting friendly attributes that are unlike any of the other major sports. First off, there are relatively few teams to keep track of in comparison to college football betting or college basketball. And second, these teams play only once a week which makes staying on top of the results much easier than it is in the daily leagues such as the NBA, NHL, and MLB.

These dynamics, along with the sheer excitement of watching and wagering on football, brings more square action to the table than any of the other sports. Almost every Tom, Dick and Harry in America is an NFL expert in their own mind and that is precisely what the oddsmakers prey upon.

Understanding who bets the games is just as important as understanding which teams are playing the games. The market at times will dictate price, which in the betting world means the oddsmakers cater to the public rather than reality.

Knowing the market inside and out is the basis of our NFL handicapping model. That is, our approach to NFL handicapping is of the contrarian or value seeking variety. We will at times place a higher premium on public sentiment than on the fundamentals. This strategy dictates playing dogs and/or lesser competent teams, or teams the public wants nothing to do with. Or better yet, fading the teams the oddsmakers want you to bet on.

Along these same lines, we carry a similar notion that the first week of the NFL season presents one of the ripest opportunities for the astute gambler. This conflicts with conventional wisdom and/or handicapping lore, as most would say it is better to watch a few games and assess each team before jumping in with both feet. That’s all fine and dandy, but there are some interesting trends to exploit in Week 1 and we’d be remiss to ignore them. Let us quickly explain.

Gone are the days of dynasties, where the same core players stay intact and dominate the league year after year. Free agency and player movements can completely transform teams from one season to the next. In today’s parity-driven NFL, poor teams typically don’t stay poor for all that long and excellent teams must constantly reinvent themselves to stay on top.

The temptation might be to assume prior year results are the best indicator of who is going to cover in Week 1. To Joe Public, playoff teams from the prior season, home teams, favorites, and so one, look even more enticing than usual since there is no current season performance to judge them against. But the question begs: are the oddsmakers setting a trap?

To find the answer, we culled five years worth of Week 1 NFL data. As always, all of our analysis is done from an ATS perspective. The purpose here is to share the most important angles we unearthed and try to explain the logic behind them. So strap on your helmet, throw on your shoulder pads, and follow our lead as we expose some rare holes in the oddsmakers’ line of defense.

Home vs. Away Teams

Over the past five seasons, NFL home teams in Week 1 are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). This of course implies that roadies are a 58 percent winning proposition during this time. The public at large has a tendency to overvalue home teams and this is especially true in Week 1 when there is no current season data to make predictions from. Consequently, the oddsmakers almost surely shade the home teams, by and large making road teams the choice for the value player.

Conclusion: Look long and hard at road teams first when handicapping the opening week.

Price ranges

Favorites are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent) in the opening week over the past five NFL seasons (Coincidentally, home teams hold the same ATS record as noted above). This means that underdogs bark at a 58 percent clip. Mid-range favorites performed the worst among our specified price ranges. In particular, favorites priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 are only 8-15 ATS (35 percent) during this time.

The same basic pattern holds true when looking at home favorites (road favorites gravitate towards a 50 percent mean). Home favorites indeed are just 21-32-3 ATS (40 percent) in the first week of NFL action since 1999. Again, mid-range favorites are similarly the poorest performers when we look at home teams. Consider that home teams priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 have stumbled to a 6-13 ATS (32 percent) mark in Week 1 games the past five seasons.

Conclusion: Like home teams, favorites and particularly mid-range favorites are generally overvalued in Week 1.

Playoff teams

It might surprise you to learn that playoff teams from the prior year versus non-playoff teams from the prior year are a mere 16-23-3 (41 percent) ATS in NFL Week 1 games over the past five seasons. Home teams which made the playoffs versus teams which did not make the playoffs from the prior season drop to a meager 7-14-1 ATS (33 percent) during this time.

Why are playoff teams, and in particular those at home, such bad bets the past five openers? Just as the case with home teams and with favorites, oddsmakers intentionally overprice playoff teams in the opening week to compensate for the public’s propensity to over bet them.

This theory holds true just looking at straight-up records from the past season as well. That is, home teams with winning records from the prior season vs. road teams with losing records from the prior season are just 8-13 ATS in Week 1 NFL games since 1999.

Conclusion: Playoff teams from the prior year and in particular, home playoff teams, are overvalued in Week 1 NFL games.

Scoring defense and scoring offense

Do good defenses and for that matter good offenses from the prior season fare better against the number the following year in Week 1 games? Well, sort of. Generally speaking, teams with a solid offense or defense from the prior season tend to do well in the opening week so long as they are on the road. As a host, however, the best offenses and best defenses from the prior year tend to be overvalued in Week 1.

Consider that the top five scoring defenses (i.e. points allowed) from the prior season are a nice 8-4 ATS (66 percent) on the road in NFL openers the past five seasons. Meanwhile, the top five scoring defenses from the prior season are just 3-8-2 ATS (27 percent) as a host in Week 1 during the same time period.

There is no discernable advantage or disadvantage for teams with a top five scoring offense (i.e. points scored) in Week 1 games. However, when we look at scoring offenses from the bottom up (isolating the five worst offenses from the prior season), the results are rather interesting. In particular, teams ranked in the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are 9-4-1 ATS (69 percent) when on the road in Week 1.

The logic is simply that the public perception is a poor scoring offensive unit from the year prior will have little chance of winning on the road in Week 1. In turn, the oddsmakers compensate for this perception and these poor offensive teams from the year prior carry extra line value on the Week 1 trail.

Conclusion: Teams with top-ranked defenses from the previous season are good bets when playing on the road, but poor bets when playing at home. Also, teams ranked among the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are generally a good value in their Week 1 openers, provided they are playing on the road.

Scoring margin

An exceedingly straightforward way of measuring scoring offense and scoring defense together as a whole is to look at a team's “margin." Margin is simply scoring offense minus scoring defense, which is a fairly clear-cut measure of how a team does on both sides of the ball. Typically, the higher the margin, the better the team.

In this regard, it might seem counterintuitive that teams carrying the higher margin from the prior season in week one matchups are merely 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). Furthermore, road teams with the higher margin are 14-20-6 ATS (41 percent), while home teams with the higher margin are 17-22-1 ATS (44 percent). Once again, these results line up with the theory that better teams from the prior year are overvalued come opening day of the following season.

Conclusion: “Better” teams, which often boast a higher margin than their opponent, are overvalued the following season in NFL openers.

In sum

Oddsmakers cater NFL betting lines to match public perception and also to bait the public into poor bets. The temptation to use the prior year’s success as a buy sign for how a team will perform against the spread in Week 1 of the following season is an enormous trap.

The fact is, isolating road teams, road dogs, non-playoff teams vs. playoff teams, teams with a losing record or low margin vs. playoff teams or ones with a high margin from the previous year is where the line value resides. Quite simply, taking the road less traveled is your surest path to NFL betting profits.

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