Monday Best Bet recaps
Monday was a relatively slow day on the sports betting front after a busy weekend, plus my son had his first day of high school marching band practice (yes, in the 110-degree heat, though a lot of drills were done inside).
I also had a great dinner with old friends, Richard and Sally Goodall. They’re both NHC Hall of Fame handicappers/contest players. We went to a dinner together around 20 years ago just after the turn of the century, interviewed Richard when he won the National Horseplayers Championship in January 2008 and have seen them at dozens of tournaments over the years. We’ve talked about going to dinner over the years but have mostly just been Facebook friends, but a mutual friend Brett Wiener helped make it happen at Guy Fieri’s Flavortown at the Horseshoe (formerly Bally’s).
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That was my highlight of my day, which some people might not believe because I went 1-0-1 with my Best Bets posted in yesterday’s column and 3-0-1 overall including other plays I mentioned that didn’t have overnight lines. To paraphrase what Trotter (the Richard Dreyfuss character in the classic “Let It Ride” movie) said: “I was having a very good day!”
I won the non-Best Bets early in the day with the Tigers vs. the Giants as they led 3-0 after 5 innings (also 2-1 through 3 innings and won the full game 5-1 for those who bet my plays that way). Now, I mentioned in my column that Circa did have the Tigers +127 overnight but I couldn’t use it as an official play because the Giants hadn’t listed a starting pitcher overnight and no one had a First 5 Inning line. As it was, the Tigers ended up going off as favorites, -130 for the First 5 and -110 for the game.
In my other non-Best Bet on the Rockies at the Nationals, again Circa had the Rockies +121 for the game but no one had F5 lines so I couldn’t make it an official play. But the Rockies went off at around +125 on the First 5 line and led 2-0 after 5 on the way to a 10-6 upset at closer to +150 (average of +149, according to my nightly ATS Report at VSiN.com.
My official top play of the day was on the First 5 Innings +100 vs. the Mariners and that didn’t look so good as we trailed 1-0 with two outs in the bottom of the 5th inning, but the Twins got two clutch two-outs hits and led 2-1 after 5 to give us the win. They also won 4-3 in 10 innings to also cash for those playing full-game moneylines (they pushed 0-0 in the first 3 innings).
As for my second official play, I also got more than a little lucky with Blue Jays First 5 Innings +105 at the Dodgers as the Blue Jays trailed 2-0 entering the top of the 5th and rallied to tie it 2-2 for a much-appreciated push. (note: the Jays did lose 1-0 for those betting First 3 innings, but made it a perfect 4-0 for those betting full-game MLs as they won 6-3 in 11 innings.
So, our official First 5 plays went 1-0-1 to improve slightly to 17-27-4 in July for a net loss of $685 based on $100 flat bets, according to the VSiN Pro Picks page. However, we have written each of the past two days that “the streaky nature of our plays has lended itself to having parlays or round-robins being more profitable (or cutting losses). We’ll see if that continues.” Well, it did continue, so hopefully at least some of you did parlay or round-robin yesterday’s plays. Those parlaying the First 5 plays went 1-0-1 so just won around 1 unit while those doing a 4-team parlay got reduced to a winning 3-team parlay in excess of 6-1 depending on when you bet it. Those betting the 4 teams by 3’s hit one 3-teamer and three 2-teamers with a push that made about another 8 units.
Let’s see if we can carry over the momentum from Monday into Tuesday with two more MLB underdogs that I like, though this time we’re going back to two bets on one game with F5 +0.5 at around even money along with a big F5 moneyline.
Tuesday MLB Best Bets
Marlins First 5 Innings +0.5 +115 and F5 +180 ML at Rays: This is a “swagger play” as the Marlins snapped an 8-game losing streak on Sunday to get some swagger back (though I would prefer if they played Monday instead of having an odd day in-between). Anyway, we still like the spot. I agree Tyler Glasnow (3-3 3.62 ERA) should be favored over our starter, Edward Cabrera (5-5, 4.50 ERA), but not at -200 or more. So, this is a value play with the inflated line, plus we also love the +0.5 option in case the game is 0-0 or 1-1, so we get a win instead of a push while getting a refund on the F5 ML. The last time we mentioned that, we cashed with a scoreless tie through 5.
Royals First 5 Innings +115 at Guardians: We mentioned before that we usually pass on the truly worst teams in the majors like the A’s and Royals. However, we have had success with them in “swagger” spots and this is a “mini-swagger” as the Royals snapped a 5-game losing streak last night in Cleveland. It’s tough to fade Aaron Civale (3-2, 2.71 ERA), but I trust Zack Greinke (1-10, 5.40 ERA) to keep this close at least early
