Tuesday was spent in a different way for yours truly as it’s usually my busiest writing day of the week when I put together “Tuley’s Takes,” my regular column in VSiN’s “Point Spread Weekly” digital magazine, but we took a day off from that on our San Francisco vacation.
We also went across the bay to Oakland for the day as we spent four hours at the Oakland Zoo in the 100-degree heat and then went to the A’s game vs. the Seattle Mariners, kind of to scout out our future team in Vegas if that comes to pass.
We won our Best Bet of the day as the Nationals won for the second straight day as a swagger play with a 3-0 win at the Orioles after snapping their 8-game losing streak on Monday. I did lose our admittedly degenerate play on the A’s as we wanted a rooting interest, but at least we won with the Over 8 as the Mariners won 8-2 highlighted by back-to-back home runs that had the Oakland fans sounding like they were willing to ship off their team to anywhere else.
Let’s recap the rest of Tuesday’s betting action and then try to keep the good times rolling on Wednesday with the return of the NHL Stanley Cup Final.
Tuesday’s recaps
MLB: Faves went 9-6 Tuesday with the upsets by the Giants (+ 156 in 12-10 win at Braves), Royals (+ 153 in 12-11 win at Angels), Rays (+ 143 in 5-4 win vs. Yankees), Guardians (+ 143 in 6-5 win at Twins), White Sox (+ 115 in 7-6 win vs. Blue Jays) and Nationals (+ 112 in 3-0 win at Orioles). Home teams went 8-7. Overs went 9-6.
More MLB: Faves lead 609-396 SU (60.6 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 525-497 (51.4 percent, but usually closer to 54 percent). Unders dropped to 503-469-48 (51.7 percent).
NHL: No Stanley Cup Final game on Tuesday, but here’s the betting stats heading into Wednesday’s Game 4 in Tampa Bay…home teams (all favored) have won all 3 games so far in the series while all 3 games have also gone Over the betting total. Note: faves were also 8-2 last round and now lead 58-28 overall. Home teams were 7-3 last round and are now 54-32 overall. Unders were 7-3 in the last round, but Overs’ 3-0 start in the Final has improved them to 46-38-2 (54.8 percent) overall.
Wednesday’s Takes
Lightning -105 vs. Avalanche: While many people were predicting a sweep after the Avalanche jumped out to a 2-0 lead (which was just holding serve with home-ice advantage), the Lightning got back in the series with their 6-2 win at home on Monday. They’ll try to even the series on Wednesday, and I’ll take them as a short home underdog in addition to my series bets on them. Note: put me also down on the Over 6 as I predicted before the series that the Over would go at least a profitable 3-2-1 if this series were to go 6 games and we’ve already won Over bets on the first three games to start 3-0.
MLB dogs: We don’t have any swagger or anti-swagger plays for Wednesday (note: the longest current sweep heading into Tuesday is the Reds’ 5-losing streak, with the Cubs on a 3-game skid and the longest winning streaks on the Red Sox and Pirates at 3 apiece. The dogs I’m considering are the A’s/Blackburn + 120 vs. the Mariners/Kirby, White Sox/Giolito + 110 vs. Blue Jays, Giants/Rodon + 107 at Braves and Brewers/Lauer + 100 vs. Cardinals/Wainwright.
Good luck today (and every day!).