Thursday was another long day far away from the Tuley’s Take’s home office. We did have some work duties to attend to first as it was the 10th anniversary of our parent company, DraftKings, but then we spent the day around the Piers in San Francisco with the Exploratorium (an interactive science exhibit that’s really cool), Fisherman’s Wharf (had a full Dungeness crab plus spent hours at Musee Mecanique) and Ghirardelli Square. Musee Mecanique has quickly become my favorite spot for our SF trips as it has tons of old games you can play (yes, they had Pac-man and Tetris and we played plenty of those along with other classic games like air hockey, foosball and pop-a-shot), but I’m mostly talking about really old games from the 1950s and before that are more mechanical in nature, including rather crude games based on baseball, basketball and boxing (one was an antecedent of Rock’em Sock’em robots with metal boxers).
The “real” games of the day started early with some day baseball. Unfortunately, I lost my Best Bet of the day on the Giants + 150 at the Braves. Alex Good did not come through for our adopted hometown of San Fran, but it was more frustrating as the Giants rallied from a 7-1 deficit to lose just 7-6. If you thought that was gut-wrenching, our secondary play on the Astros + 140 at the Yankees was much worse. In that game, it looked like we had the right side when the Astros took a 6-3 lead in the top of the third inning and held it all the way to the bottom of the 9th, where the Yankees scored 4 runs to win 7-6. Ouch! Good thing I was distracted by the games at Musee Mecanique (probably losing my foosball tournament 5-4-1 in a best-of-10 series at the time) and wasn’t watching live.
As for the NBA Draft, I hope our readers did well with their bets. It’s just not something I get into, as it’s similar to the NFL Draft where there’s no traditional handicapping involved and instead reacting to breaking news.
Let’s recap the rest of Thursday’s betting action and then try to get back on the winning track on Friday with perhaps the last game of the NHL 2021-22 season.
Thursday’s recaps
MLB: Faves went 7-3 Thursday with upsets by the Orioles (+ 143 in 4-0 win at White Sox), Phillies (+ 137 in 6-2 win at Padres) and Pirates (-103 in 8-7 win vs. Cubs); Home teams went 6-4. Overs 6-4.
More MLB: Faves lead 628-402 SU (61 percent) on the season with 17 games closing pick-'em (faves usually win around 59 percent, so faves still well ahead of that pace). Home teams lead just 539-508 (51.5 percent, but usually closer to 54 percent). Unders dropped to 511-483-51 (51.4 percent).
NHL: No Stanley Cup Final game on Thursday, but here’s the updated betting stats heading into Friday’s Game 5. Faves dipped to 3-1 in Final as Avalanche was 1st dog (ever so slight) to win a game, but faves still lead 58-29 overall. Home teams are also 3-1 in series and 54-33 overall. Overs also dipped to 3-1 with the 1st Under in the series, but still lead 46-39-2 (54.1 percent).
Friday’s Takes
Lightning-Avalanche Over 6 EVEN: We need the Lightning to win this game in Denver and send this series back to Tampa for our series bet, but we consider the Over as the Best Bet on Friday. Before the series, we predicted we’d do at least 3-2-1 by betting the Over 6 in every game. The good news is we won the first three games in the series, but the bad news is we could lose this game and end up 3-2 (basically the same) and give back most of our profits. However, Games 1 and 2 in Denver both went Over and I expect the Avalanche to play loose at home as they try to close out the series.
MLB dogs: Again, those losses on Thursday were tough. David Allison, one of our Twitter followers at @ViewFromVegas even posted “Take a break after that Hou loss. Brutal.” We’re not going to quit cold turkey, but certainly cutting back on our bets. For Friday, we’re probably just going with Braves/Anderson + 120 vs. Dodgers/Urias and Brewers/Houser + 140 vs. Blue Jays (I am definitely passing on the Astros/Verlander + 110 at Yankees/Severino).
Good luck today (and every day!).