Wednesday wasn’t the typical hump day in the Tuley’s Takes home office as we were immersed in the past performances of this weekend’s 14 Breeders’ Cup races as we juggled that with our regular duties. We hope we’ve found some live long shots that we’ll be posting in our “Team Tuley’s Thoroughbred Takes” columns at VSiN.com/horses on Thursday afternoon (for Friday’s 5 BC races) and Friday (for Saturday’s 9 BC races, including the Classic).
Unfortunately, we lost our Best Bet on Wednesday on the Phillies 1st 5 -110 vs. the Astros as it’s pretty hard to score when you’re no-hit in the first 5 innings on the way to getting no-hit by Houston starter Cristian Javier and three relievers for the whole game, as we witnessed only the second no-hitter in World Series history (Don Larsen’s perfect game for the Yankees in 1956 being the other). We nearly had a push as Philadelphia’s Aaron Nola matched Javier through the first 4 innings as the game was scoreless until the Astros broke through for 5 runs in the top of the 5th. We also regretted not taking the two MACtion underdogs as they’re 4-0 ATS the last two nights (see recaps below). In fact, let’s recap the rest of Wednesday’s action, and then get back on the horse with Best Bets for Thursday. As has become our custom around here, we’ll then rerun our “takes” column from Wednesday in which we go over the entire NFL Week 9 card.Wednesday’s Recaps
MLB: Astros (-short -104 road underdogs) shut out Phillies 5-0 on combined no-hitter to even the World Series at 2-2 a day after getting shut out themselves (game stayed Under the betting total of 7.5 runs). Dogs and road teams are both 3-1 in the series while Unders took a 2-1-1 lead.
More MLB: Dogs improved to 20-17 overall in the playoffs with 1 game closing pick-'em. Home teams dipped to 22-16 overall. Unders improved to 19-17-2 lead in totals wagering.
NBA: Faves went 7-4 SU on Wednesday night, but dogs led 6-4-1 ATS. The upsets were by the Wizards (+5.5 at 76ers), Hawks (+2 at Knicks), Lakers (+2 vs. Pelicans) and Cavaliers (+1.5 vs. Celtics). The Kings (+4.5 at Heat) and Jazz (+6.5 at Mavericks) covered in SU losses. Grizzlies (-5) had the push in their 111-106 win at the Blazers.More NBA: Faves improved to 74-41 SU on the regular season with 2 games closing pick-’em, but dogs still lead 57-51-7 ATS (52.8%). Home teams improved to 73-44 SU but dipped to 60-50-7 ATS (54.5%). Overs dipped to 62-52-3 (54.4%).
NHL: Faves/dogs split 1-1 as Maple Leafs (-309 home faves) beat Flyers 5-2 and Sabres (+100 home dogs) beat Penguins 6-3. Home teams swept 2-0. Overs also went 2-0. On the season, faves lead 93-61 with 6 games closing pick-’em. Home teams lead 89-69 with 2 neutral-site games. Overs took 80-78-2 lead.
CFB: Central Michigan (+4.5) upset Northern Illinois 35-22 in MACtion Wednesday night and Bowling Green (-5) beat Western Michigan 13-9 but did NOT cover. Mid-week MACtion dogs have gone 4-0 ATS the last 2 nights with 3 outright upsets. Road teams are 2-2 SU but lead 3-1 ATS. Over/Unders have split 2-2.
Thursday’s Takes
Texans +14 vs. Eagles: We’ll go into detail in the column below, but basically we feel this line is inflated too high on the undefeated Eagles. BetMGM and a few other books were still dealing +14 early Thursday morning, so shop around if you didn’t grab it yesterday.
Phillies 1st 5 -110 vs. Astros: The series is now tied 2-2, but we’ll wheel back on the Phillies as they get Game 5 at home. Let’s also stick with the 1st 5 wagers like we did in Game 1 vs. Justin Verlander and hope our favorite Phillies, former Cub Kyle Schwarber and Las Vegas native Bryce Harper keep pounding right-handed pitching (Wednesday’s no-hitter notwithstanding).
Welcome to our weekly Wednesday column where we give our “takes” on the full NFL schedule. Regular readers should know the routine by now while we trust newbies will get up to speed with our “dog-or-pass” philosophy. We’re basically looking for the live dogs on each week’s card, but we know everyone isn’t as dogmatic as we are. We also have a lot of readers that play more chalk than we do, but they still check our “takes” each week because they feel that if I’m not able to make a case for an underdog, they see it as tacit approval to lay the points. To each his own. We’re just trying to help in any way we can! Last weekend, we had a rollercoaster ride as we won our Best Bet on the Packers + 11.5 (early in the week for our regular readers) and + 11 in their 27-17 loss at the Bills on Sunday Night Football, but went 2-3 ATS overall with our top plays. But the good news is we still had a winning weekend as we hit nearly all of our teaser plays, including Buccaneers + 7.5/Over 40 on Thursday Night Football (given out in last Wednesday’s original “takes” column). We then flipped to Ravens + 8/Over 40 on game day when there was a change of favorite and cashed both in the Ravens’ 27-22 victory. So it pays to check back for our daily updates. Without further ado, let’s go over the NFL Week 9 card. Even if I don’t have an official Best Bet on a game, I still give my “pool play” strategy for those who are in contests where you have to pick every game. Philadelphia Eagles (-14) at Houston TexansI’ll just come right out and say that I believe parity is alive and well in today’s NFL and I'll be on all three double-digit underdogs this weekend, including the Jets + 13 vs. the Bills and Titans + 12.5 at the Chiefs. We know the Eagles have the league’s best record at 7-0 SU as the last undefeated team and Lions’ 1-6 record is the only one worse than the Texans’ 1-5-1. However, we still don’t think any NFL team should be two-TD faves vs. any other on any given Sunday (or Thursday night), plus double-digit dogs – while not the automatic play they once were – are 5-4 ATS far this season with the Panthers’ 21-3 Week 7 home win vs. the Buccaneers being the lone outright upset. In fact, double-digit home dogs (like the Texans here) are 1-0 SU and ATS. For those curious, 9.5-point dogs (just on the cusp of double-digits) are 2-2 ATS with the Steelers’ 20-18 Week 6 home win vs. the Bucs being the next-biggest upset. The Texans are a respectable 3-3-1 ATS and also covered in their lone game as a double-digit dog as they only lost 16-9 at the Broncos back in Week 2 as 10-point dogs. The Texans have been 7-point pups three times and are 2-1 ATS in those games as they tied the Colts 20-20 in the season-opener and beat the Jaguars outright, 13-6, in Week 5, so they’re used to sticking around in games with big spreads.
Best Bet: Texans + 14 (pool play: Texans in all my rare ATS contests using TNF, but Eagles in all my SU pools).
Indianapolis Colts at New England Patriots (-5.5)