Saturday Best Bets
Welcome to our “Tuley’s Takes” Best Bets column for Friday.
In case you missed it last week, we’ve started splitting our daily column into two separate pieces: there’s a FREE article where I recap the betting action from the night before and update league-wide ATS stats in the various sports, and then this one where I look for the best betting opportunities on today’s wagering menu.
Links to both articles should be found on the VSiN.com home page, though I advise my regular readers to also bookmark my dedicated page at https://vsin.com/news/dave-tuley-columns/.
Top MLB Resources:
Friday Best Bet Results
Friday was a move back to the NBA and NHL playoffs taking center stage after the NFL Draft dominating the sports betting news on Thursday.
Personally, I pushed on my Marlins First 5 Inning -110 wager as they tied the Cubs 1-1 after 5 innings (though they went on to win 3-2 for those that bet my pick that way). We then went on to have a winning night as the Kings not only covered as 7.5-point road underdogs but beat the Warriors 118-99 to force a decisive Game 7 on Sunday. That was a very satisfying result.
Actually, we did have another unofficial winner as our NHL First-Period Over parlay from Thursday’s Maple Leafs-Lightning game to Friday’s Avalanche-Kraken game that I wasn’t able to post on the VSiN PRO picks page cashed at +199. We often get asked for our overall record, etc., and I try to explain that it doesn’t tell the whole story of what we’re doing here on a daily basis, but at least I know my regular readers know that it’s often what they read “between the lines” that leads them to even more profits (such as the 10-unit profit on our suggested NHL 1P Over round-robin a few weeks ago that also wasn’t an official play).
Anyway, let’s get to Saturday’s action – and I’m sure many of you are already alive with a NHL 1P Over parlay from Friday’s Avalanche-Kraken game to today’s Lightning-Maple Leafs contest though again it’s an unposted Best Bet as it wasn’t available when we “went to press” yesterday.
MLB Saturday Best Bet
Giants +1.5 -105 vs. Padres in Mexico City: The Giants (11-14) and Padres (13-14) are off to disappointing starts overall, but I don’t see why the Padres are such a big favorite with Joe Musgrove (1-0, 5.40 ERA) vs. Sean Manaea (0-1, 6.61 ERA). The Over/Under is 15 runs as this is being played at high altitude, so I also believe the Giants (even though they’re been hit or miss in a lot of games this year) have the better chance to capitalize as they still average 4.44 runs per game compared to 3.67 for the Padres. Just in case we’ll take the run line as our Best Bet, but we’ll also take a little on the Giants +150 money line and considering a First 5 wager as well.
NHL Saturday Best Bet
Maple Leafs-Lightning 1P Over 1.5 -150 / Kraken-Avalanche 1P Over -125 (parlay pays +200): Unlike previous days, several books (including BetMGM and William Hill that operate here and in several other states) have already posted a 1P Over/Under for Sunday’s Game 7 of the Kraken-Avalanche series, so we can add this for followers that haven’t already been rolling over from day to day on these (with just 1 losing play and 8.23 units of profit, and even higher as I keep hearing from readers getting even better parlay payoffs than we’ve been posting here). I know some will say that Game 7 is risky with teams playing closer to the vest with so much on the line, but the Avalanche-Kraken 1P still went Over last night and we’re counting on the teams to keep playing the same way.
XFL playoffs Best Bet
Seattle Sea Dragons +5 at DC Defenders: We gave this out Sunday night on “The Greg Peterson Experience” when Circa Sports was one of the rare books with early lines on the XFL playoff games this upcoming weekend. We don’t like the Arlington Renegades vs. the Houston Roughnecks in Saturday’s XFL semifinal game, but took Seattle in this matchup on Sunday. DC (9-1 SU, 7-3 ATS) was the top team during the regular season, but Seattle lost its first 2 games of the season, including 22-18 at DC, and then went 6-1 the rest of the way with the only other loss to DC, though that was another close game at 34-33. I have this at pick’em, even with DC at home as XFL hosts are just 19-19-2 ATS overall, so home-field advantage is negligible (even though DC was 4-1 ATS at home, though failed in most recent home game as 10-point chalk in 28-26 win vs. Arlington in Week 9). I believed this line opened too high and wrote in Monday’s version of this column, “we have to take the Sea Dragons at anything more than a field goal.” It was still mostly +3.5 as of Tuesday but has since dropped to 3, so keep shopping around if you’re with us.
