Monday was a pretty light day in the Tuley’s Takes home office as we had to wait around for our Best Bet of the day, but it was worth the wait as the Angels beat the Guardians 3-0.
We gave it out in this column Monday morning at + 108. We knew that was a great price and the market agreed as the Angels were steamed and closed as -123 home favorites. As we predicted, the Angels’ Michael Lorenzen matched the Guardians’ Shane Bieber inning for inning as they both went scoreless in 6 and 6 1/3 innings, respectively, with the Angels plating 3 runs against the Cleveland bullpen with all the runs coming on 2 homers by Taylor Ward.
The Best Bet win improved our record to 47-24-1 ATS (66.2 percent) with our top play of the day the past 72 days (10-plus weeks).
Before we get to the overall recaps and our “takes” for Tuesday, we need to make a CORRECTION from Monday’s column. We posted that we lost our Best Bet on the Bulls but “personally had a winning day as we won our second-Best Bet on the Breakers-Bandits Under 40.5 in the lone USFL game of the day, split 2-2 on our MLB bets 2-2 (which comes out as a profit since we’re playing underdogs with the Rockies + 115 at the Tigers and Brewers + 150 at the Phillies cashing for us) and then swept our NHL 1P Over 1.5 plays as the Oilers-Blue Jackets, Red Wings-Devils, Lightning-Panthers and Maple Leafs-Capitals all came in.” As one of our readers on Twitter (@joefischetti4) pointed out, the Devils did not go Over 1.5 as the Red Wings only led 1-0 at the end of the opening period. What happened was that I was exhausted from a long Saturday driving my kids to Utah and back for a musical, so after filing my Sunday column, I made most of my bets for the day but forgot to put in the 4-teamer on the NHL 1P Overs. I missed the start of the Oilers-Blue Jackets and Red Wings-Devils and was kicking myself as I swear I saw 2 goals on my ESPN scoreboard app in the Red Wings-Devils game (was there a disallowed goal as I couldn’t find any evidence of it in the play-by-play as I wasn’t watching live). The mis-grading wasn’t intentional and I’m glad I had the Maple Leafs-Capitals and Lightning-Panthers later at 4 p.m. PT. We apologize for the error and hope any followers (though we know a lot have backed off on these the past several weeks) were able to squeeze out a profit with the 1P Overs going 3-1 instead of 4-0.
Anyway, let’s recap the rest of Monday’s betting action and we have a lot more plays for Tuesday, including our top plays on MLB and an NHL side that I like better than the 1P Overs (though I’m taking a shot with a round-robin).
Monday’s recaps
NBA: Underdogs went 2-1 ATS Monday with 2 outright upsets by the Celtics (+ 1.5 in 116-112 win at Nets to complete 4-0 sweep) and Raptors (+ 8.5 in 103-88 win at 76ers to pull within 3-2 in their 1st-round series). The Mavericks (-3) covered in a 102-77 rout vs. the Jazz to take a 3-2 lead. Road teams also led 2-1 SU and ATS while Unders went 2-1.
More NBA: Faves still lead 21-13 SU and 18-16 ATS (52.9 percent) in the 1st round. Home teams lead 19-15 SU, but road teams lead 18-16 ATS (note: higher seeds went 11-5 ATS in Games 3-4 on the road in the 1st round). Zig-zag teams, which went 1-2 ATS Monday with the win by the Mavericks but losses on the Nets and 76ers, have fallen back to .500 at 13-13 ATS. Unders lead 20-14 (58.8 percent).
MLB: Faves went 5-2 with the upsets by the Giants (+ 169 in 4-2 win at Brewers) and Rangers (+ 120 in 6-2 win vs. Astros). The Angels actually opened as short home dogs before closing -123 and beating the Guardians 3-0. Home teams went 4-3 on the day. Unders went 4-2-1 with a push on 8 in the Blue Jays' 6-2 win vs. the Red Sox.
More MLB: faves went 5-2 on Monday and lead 147-95 SU (60.7 percent) on young season w/ 2 games closing pick-'em; home teams went 4-3 on Monday and lead 128-116 over road teams, which led 65-63 just 9 days ago; Unders went 4-2-1 Monday to improve to 138-92-14 (exactly 60 percent).
NHL: Blackhawks (-135) beat the Flyers 3-1 in the only #NHL game on Monday night; the Blackhawks also covered the -1.5 puck line and the game stayed Under the betting total of 6.5 goals.
Tuesday’s Takes
Reds + 1.5 -120 vs. Padres: I gave this pick out on “The Lookahead” show with my VSiN colleague Scott Seidenberg on Sunday night even though we didn’t have a price on it. The Reds are a swagger play as they snapped their 11-game losing streak on Sunday. I usually prefer that teams in this spot play right away the next day to maximize their momentum, but we’ll still take it along on the run line with a smaller play on the straight money line around + 155.
Bruins + 105 vs. Panthers: We’ll try another swagger/anti-swagger play, this time in the NHL, as the Panthers had their 13-game winning streak snapped on Sunday. The Bruins are still hoping to finish 3rd in the Atlantic while also trying not to fall a spot and having a first-round series against the Panthers, who have already clinched the top seed in the Eastern Conference and have the inside track at the President’s Cup (though some feel they should avoid winning it as the President’s Cup winner has only gone on to win the Stanley Cup 3 times since 2001-02).
NHL 1P Overs: For those still playing these, every single top 1P Over team is in action on Tuesday. I wouldn’t go too crazy with these considering how much they’ve cooled off overall (as I’ve written several times recently), but the degenerate in me is leaning toward taking a 6-team round-robin by 5’s (meaning we’d need to go 5-1 as 4-2 wouldn’t pay that much anyway). The teams are the Panthers, Blue Jackets, Wild, Devils (playing No. 6 Senators), Maple Leafs and Oilers and all have game totals of 6.5. Just try to get Over 1.5 instead of Over 2 (in which case you’d have to go with round-robin by 4’s and need to go 4-1-1). Again, let me stress that I don’t recommend risking more than your regular “unit” overall.
Wednesday: We also recommended taking the Nuggets + 9 at the Warriors on the show. The Warriors are in a zig-zag role (as “loser of the last”), but they’re also an anti-swagger play as they had an 8-game winning streak snapped on Sunday. We usually don’t see these plays carry over into the playoffs, but while everyone else is expecting the Warriors to close out the series at home after dropping Game 4 on the road, I’m counting on the Nuggets at least keeping this close. I saw this line drop to 8.5 at a lot of books on Monday, but now it looks like the public is pushing the line back up. We’ll see if it goes even higher by tomorrow.
Good luck today (and every day!).