Friday Best Bet Results
Friday really felt like a vacation day in the Tuley’s Takes home office that has been temporarily moved to Hawaii as we didn’t have any NBA or NHL playoff games to follow.
I spent most of the day snorkeling with the family on Oahu at Hanauma Bay, one of my favorite places on Earth, as I proposed to my wife there in 2000.
As for my Best Bets here in these daily columns (which I’ve continued despite being 2,700 miles from Vegas), I split 1-1 with a win on my top play of Rangers First 5 Innings +110 at the Orioles as they fell behind 1-0 but then pummeled them 10-1 through 5 innings for the purposes of our main bet and went on to easily win 12-2 for those who bet my plays that way. Unfortunately, we only split again as the Nationals trailed the Royals 2-1 after 5, though they also rallied to win 12-10 for those betting the full-game money line.
We’ve been chopping money the last few days, but we’re still 34-24-7 (58.6%) in May – still impressive in my book as most of them are underdogs – and the plus-money has pushed us back up over +12 units with a net profit of $1,208.73 based on $100 flat bets, according to the VSiN Pro Picks page.
Let’s look for more Best Bets on Saturday. I’ll pass on the Stars as dogs in the NHL playoff game as the Golden Knights are home in the zig-zag role, but I’ll take the Heat as home dogs in the NBA and I have two MLB dogs on Saturday’s full card.
NBA Saturday Best Bet
Heat +3 vs. Celtics: The Heat came up short in the zig-zag role in Game 5 after also losing Game 4 and the whole word seems to be on the Celtics to pull off the comeback from trailing 3-0. But we’re willing to fade the masses here with the Heat back in the role of home underdog like they were at +4.5 in Game 3 (when everyone else seemed to be getting on the Boston bandwagon only to abandon the Celtics after their embarrassing loss and making the Heat a short home fave in Game 4). So, even though the Celtics did cover in Game 5 to pull within 3-2 in the series, the public has still mostly been wrong and we’ll take the Heat to close out the series here – though we also cash if they lose by 1 or 2 points.
MLB Saturday Best Bets
Pirates First 5 Innings +170 at Mariners: This is an mini-anti-swagger play against the Mariners, who just had their 4-game winning streak snapped by the Pirates on Friday night. I’m not overly thrilled with the starting pitching matchup of Roansy Contreras (3-4, 4.50 ERA) vs. Luis Castillo (3-2, 2.97), but the situation and the big juicy plus-price on the Pirates is too good to pass up (though part of me is thinking that Pirates F5 +0.5 +105 might be the more prudent play in case it ends in a tie).
Marlins First 5 Innings +155 at Angels: This is similar to the Pirates’ play as the Angels are also in a mini-anti-swagger spot with their modest 4-game winning streak ending on Friday. This also involves fading Shohei Ohtani (5-1, 3.05 ERA) with Edward Cabrera (3-4, 5.05 ERA), but again this is a value play at the nice plus-money price; besides, the Angels don’t always give Ohtani much run support. (Again, let’s see if we should have gone with Marlins F5 +0.5 EVEN.)
