Monday was a strange day in the Tuley’s Takes home office. For one thing, my two younger kids are on spring break, so I didn’t have any bus stop/after-school pickup daddy duties, but I was plenty busy working on my article for Point Spread Weekly and other projects.
I’m also needing to get work out of the way because my wife is taking our middle daughter Peyton (the one who wants to be an actress/singer/playwright) to New York to visit Broadway for the first time. Meanwhile, to not neglect our 12-year-old son, Maddux, I’m taking him to Knotts Berry Farm in California for a couple of days.
We loved having some day baseball, but still had to wait for our Best Bet of the day on the Mariners + 115 at the Twins. Unfortunately, it wasn’t worth the wait as the Mariners were shut out 4-0, which was also the score after 5 innings. Seattle’s Chris Flaxen pitched well enough to win, but you can’t win if you don’t score. That dropped our record to 38-19-1 ATS (back down to 66.7 percent) with our top play of the day the past 58 days.
I just wish I had used either of my secondary MLB dog plays as my Best Bet as the Rockies (+ 115 or better at the Rangers) won 6-4 in 10 innings and the BlueJays (+ 105 at the Yankees) blanked the Bronx Bombers 3-0. But that was a nice consolation prize, though we did also lose our lukewarm NHL First-Period Over play with the Jets-Canadiens 1P Over as they played a scoreless period.
Anyway, let’s recap the rest of Monday’s betting action and try to get back on the winning track on Tuesday.
Monday’s recaps
MLB: Underdogs went 7-4 with upsets by the Nationals (+ 200 at Braves), A's (+ 195 at Rays), Padres (+ 135 at Giants), Orioles (+ 130 vs. Brewers), Rockies (+ 121 at Rangers), Tigers (+ 110 vs. Red Sox) and Blue Jays (+ 105 at Yankees). Unders went 6-3-2 with the pushes in Mets-Phillies (total of 9) and Rockies-Rangers (total of 10).
More MLB: After going 4-7 on Monday, faves dipped to 33-27 SU on the young season; Road teams went 6-5 on Monday, cutting home teams' lead to just 31-29. Unders lead 33-22-5 (60 percent) overall, thanks mostly to going 13-1-1 on Saturday as Overs are actually 1 game above .500 (21-20-4) the other 4 days.
NHL: In the lone pro hockey game of the night, the Jets beat the Canadiens 4-2 as -125 road favorites and they also covered the -1.5 puck line. The game stayed Under the betting total of 6.5 goals.
Tuesday Takes
Cavaliers + 8.5 at Nets: I gave this out on “The Lookahead” show with Greg Peterson VSiN on Sunday night (and it appeared in Monday’s VSiN newsletters), plus in yesterday’s Tuley’s Takes Today as it available at 8.5 at Circa Sports here in Vegas and a few other books even though it was + 8 elsewhere. Well, I didn’t have to worry as it’s pretty much 8.5 now with – as I mentioned – everyone expecting the Nets to now just “flip the switch” and play great in the playoffs even though we haven’t seen them protect their home court (even with Kyrie Irving) and also letting lesser teams stick around, at least as far as the spread is concerned. We’re not buying it, and taking as many points as they’ll give us.
Blue Jays + 105 at Yankees: In Point Spread Weekly last week, we talked about how we’ve liked this Toronto team for a couple of years, so we’ll gladly take them as dogs anytime we can. I again see value in the Rockies (3-1 to start the season including 2-1 vs. the defending champion Dodgers) getting + 140 at the Rangers and the Padres + 100 at the Giants.
Oilers-Wild First-Period Over 1.5 -170 (DraftKings): Several of the 1P Over teams we like are playing on Tuesday, highlighted by these two teams (Wild are No. 2 in league at 68.6 percent while Oilers are No. 5 at 62.5 percent) facing each other. I’m going to take this one and do parlays with the 1Ps involving 3 of the other 3 Top 6 teams in action: Panthers-Ducks, Maple Leafs-Sabres and Devils-Coyotes.
Good luck today (and every day!).