Friday Best Bet Results
Friday was a mostly a day of naps for yours truly in the Tuley’s Takes home office/bedroom after our 11-day Hawaiian vacation (you know the saying: I need a vacation to recover from my vacation).
I woke up in time to bet and watch my Best Bets of the day both win. My top play was on the National First 5 Innings +135 vs. the Phillies (as loyal “Tuley’s Takes” reader Aaron Sarpy pointed out in an email, we were able to get +160 closer to gametime) easily won as the Nats jumped out to a 2-0 lead on Zack Wheeler as we expected in the bottom of the 1st inning and added 4 more runs in the 2nd on the way to lead 7-1 after 5 innings. We were also happy that they re-rallied after the Phillies tied the game and won 8-7 as the biggest winning underdog of the day at +160 for those followers that bet my plays on the full-game money line.
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We also won with the Blue Jays First 5 Innings +110 at the Mets (again, we got +120 with our actual bet) as George Springer hit a solo homer off Justin Verlander while Chris Bassitt got the job done for us with the Blue Jays leading 1-0 after 5 innings and going on to win 3-0 for our followers that bet my plays that way.
For our purposes here, we went 2-0 for +2.45 units to get back on the positive side of the ledger after starting -1 unit on the month of June with the Heat on Thursday after going 41-28-8 (59.4%) in the month of May for a profit of $1,560.79 based on $100 flat bets, according to the VSiN Pro Picks page (but again, we trust our regular readers fared even better with waiting until closer to gametime to bet our dogs in addition to line shopping).
Let’s look for plays on Saturday and we’re making our first play on the USFL season in Week 8. I feel kinda bad as I’ve been making winning bets the past month in the USFL but haven’t shared any here because I didn’t feel I back up my plays with helpful analysis besides the fact that this season has been filled with parity and a “dog-or-pass” bettor’s dream with dogs going 21-7 ATS (75%). My fear is that after bragging about undocumented wins that I’ll start with a loss, but we’re forging ahead anyway. I also have two more MLB First 5 plays I like, plus an early look at Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday.
USFL Saturday Best Bet
Philadelphia Stars +6.5 vs. Birmingham Stallions: Birmingham (5-2) is the USFL’s defending champ (beating Philadelphia in last year’s title game) and the best team so far this season, but we believe this line is too high and will take the points. The Stars (4-3) have a -28 point differential, which I’m sure is why they’re not getting enough respect from oddsmakers and bettors. However, they’ve won 3 straight after a slow start and have a knack for pulling out close games. We expect this to be another one-score game and for the Stars to cover if not pull the outright upset.
MLB Saturday Best Bets
Rockies First 5 Innings +130 at Royals: The Rockies are in a “mini-swagger” spot after snapping a 4-game losing streak with Friday’s 7-2 win in KC. I’m not thrilled with backing Austin Gomber (4-4, 7.00 ERA), but this is also a play against the Royals (17-40), who are as high as a -150 favorite on the full-game ML. That just seems crazy to me and I can’t resist taking the inflated price.
Cubs First 5 Innings +135 at Padres: This is a similar situation as the Padres (26-30) barely have a better record than the Cubs (24-31), but I also get Drew Smyly (5-2, 3.45 ERA) vs. Yu Darvish (3-4, 4.61), who regular readers know I’ve always felt was overrated. As I wrote yesterday, I’ll be content with a split on these F5 dogs but again hoping for the sweep.
NBA Sunday Best Bet
Heat +8.5 at Nuggets: We missed the +9 opener at most books on Thursday night as we were travelling back to Las Vegas, but with the majority of bettors (58% of bets and 66% of handle at DraftKings, according to the VSiN Betting Splits page https://vsin-staging.go-vip.net/betting-resources/daily-betting-insights-for-mlb-nba-nhl/ ) taking the Heat to bounce back in the “zig-zag role,” I’ll lock in the +8.5 now and explain more in Sunday’s version of this daily column.
