By Jeff Haney

Fri, Apr 11, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Let’s not go overboard: Asking the Baltimore Orioles or the Kansas City Royals to maintain their early leads in the AL East and AL Central would be a bit much.

After all, before the season the O’s and Royals were the two longest shots on the betting board to win their divisions. Kansas City was listed at 60-1 to win the AL Central, far behind the Tigers and Indians, and Baltimore was 500-1 to upset the Red Sox and Yankees and take the AL East.

That doesn’t mean sports gamblers should ignore the Orioles and Royals in their day-to-day baseball betting.

Not by a long shot.

In fact, Las Vegas sports handicapper Joe D’Amico is recommending the O’s and Royals as teams to back at the windows and predicts both will offer attractive prices to value-seeking baseball bettors at least through the early part of the season.

“In the American League right now, you’ll find some of the best prices on the Royals, the Orioles, and also the White Sox,” D’Amico said. “The AL East is traditionally the strongest division, with everybody talking about Boston and the Yankees.

“But it’s impossible to find any value on the Red Sox or Yankees. Their price is high to start with and it’s always jacked up even more because they are such public favorites. They’ll win a lot of games, but you’ll probably lose money betting them.”

Baltimore, at 6-1, and Kansas City, at 6-2, have started strong and won more money for bettors than any other two teams in baseball.

It could take a while for oddsmakers and the betting public to “catch up,” said D’Amico, whose style as a baseball handicapper is to play underdogs and short favorites — and to shop around at various sports books for the best price.

“It’s all about value in baseball,” said D’Amico, a contributor to the Vegas Insider Web site. “If you shop around, it’s easy to find a team at minus-122 (risk $1.22 to win $1) at one place and minus-127 at another.

“For a bettor betting $100 to $500 a game, several games a day, you can see how quickly that adds up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars in the course of a seven-month season.”

In the National League, D’Amico recommends paying attention to the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres, two good but perhaps not great teams that will win games without their odds getting out of control.

He suspects the betting lines on the St. Louis Cardinals, however, could quickly become inflated if they maintain their lead in the NL Central. He advises approaching the New York Mets, favored to win the league and the World Series, with caution.

“The Mets have as much or more talent than any team in baseball on paper, but as a bettor I’d stay away from them,” D’Amico said. “It’s going to be tough to find any value there.”

In playing baseball over/unders, or “totals,” paying attention to the home-plate umpire should play a role in your handicapping, even if it’s not the deciding factor, D’Amico said.

“Certain umpires are prone to call a larger strike zone,” D’Amico said. “If a pitcher knows that, he might throw a few more pitches outside, off the plate, because they know they’ll catch a few extra inches of strike zone. Hitters might know it, too, and end up swinging at bad pitches.”

For example, umpire Gerry Davis had 23 overs and just 12 unders behind the plate last season, according to Jim Feist’s umpire report. Scott Barry was 7-1 to the over, Jim Reynolds 21-13 and Larry Vanover 23-14.

Gary Darling had 13 unders and 20 overs, and Ed Rapuano and Jim Wolf were 12-20 to the under last year.

A strategy such as studying umpires’ tendencies, which might seem esoteric to a casual sports fan, reflects baseball betting’s status as a thinking person’s game, D’Amico said.

“In football, you come across a lot of undisciplined bettors who bet games they don’t really like on Saturday or Sunday because they don’t want to wait another week to make a bet,” he said. “In baseball, it should be easier to be disciplined. They play every day.

“With baseball, I like to say, ‘Be patient and be stingy. If you don’t like something today, just hang back and you’ll like something on the board tomorrow.’ ”