Monday was a day of catching up on some sleep and doing chores around the house, plus watching some college baseball and softball in the Tuley’s Takes home office.
We lost our Best Bet of the day on the Avalanche-Oilers Under 6.5, but we’re still 8-3 ATS the past 11 days. We came out a little ahead on our baseball plays as we won with the Red Sox + 110 at the Angels but lost with the Padres vs. the Mets.
Let’s recap the rest of Monday’s betting results and try to get back on the winning track on Tuesday.
Monday’s recaps
NHL: Avalanche outlasted Oilers 6-5 in OT to sweep the Western Conference Finals 4-0 and advance to the Stanley Cup Finals. The ViewFromVegas is the Avs did it as -125 road favorites, improving to 7-0 on the road in this year's playoffs (the game went Over the betting total of 6.5 goals).
More NHL: Faves improved to 5-2 in the conference finals round and now lead 52-28 overall. Home teams dipped to 5-2 this round and 49-31 overall. Unders dipped to 4-3 in this round, while Overs improved to 43-35-2 (55.1 percent) overall.
MLB: Underdogs went 3-2 on short Monday card with the upsets by the Mariners (+ 158 in 7-4 win at Astros), Red Sox (+ 106 in 1-0 win at Angels, who lost 12th straight) and Mets (+ 100 in 11-5 win at Padres). Road teams went 4-1. Over/Unders split 2-2. Note: the Reds cash on the money line in the rain-shortened game vs. the Diamondbacks, but the total (and run line) bets are considered no-action.
More MLB: Faves are 483-314 SU (60.6 percent) with 17 games closing pick-'em (faves usually win about 59 percent, so faves ahead of that pace). Home teams drop to 416-398 (51.1 percent, but usually closer to 54 percent). Note: roads teams are 33-18 since Friday. Unders lead 402-371-39 (52 percent) with 2 fewer games due to being rain-shortened.
Tuesday’s Takes
Rangers + 150 at Lightning: After winning Games 1 and 2 of the NHL’s Eastern Conference Finals at home, the Rangers gave back a game in Tampa in Game 3, but we still like them in the zig-zag role here to take back control in the series. As far as the handicap of the actual game, we feel the oddsmakers have made this line too high. The Rangers not only lead 2-1 in this series but 5-1 in the season series. And even if you go by just the last two games (and ignore the Rangers’ 6-2 rout in Game 1), they were both 3-2 final scores and could have gone either way, so I believe this line should be really close to a coin-flip at pick-’em.
MLB dogs: I’ve heard from some readers that have said they don’t like it when I pass on the entire MLB card and prefer if I even just list my leans on some dogs, even if it’s just 2 plays so they can still try to profit by going 1-1. Well, I have 4 such games on Tuesday (none of which I like enough to make my Best Bet of Tuesday), but we just need to go 2-2 to show a profit: Cardinals + 130 at Rays with Dakota Hudson vs. Jeffrey Springs, Mets + 115 with Tajuan Walker vs. Yu Darvish and the White Sox + 118 vs. the Dodgers with Michael Kopech vs. Mitch White and the Pirates + 115 with Jose Quintana vs. Tarik Skubal.
Good luck today (and every day!).