Wednesday Best Bet Results
Wednesday started early with our Best Bet of the day on the A’s First 5 Innings +140 at the Pirates.
As we wrote yesterday, it’s not easy pulling the trigger on the A’s, who are having a historically bad season, but we liked them in the “swagger” role after snapping a 5-game losing streak and also an “anti-swagger” play against the Pirates, who just had a 6-game winning streak snapped. We also didn’t mind fading Pittsburgh’s Roansy Contreras and we didn’t have to sweat our decision long as the A’s jumped all over Contreras by scoring 7 runs in the top of the 1st inning with Contreras only registering one out. They held on to lead 7-3 after 5 innings for our main bet and went on to win 9-5 for those who bet our plays on the full-game money line. Unfortunately, I lost my two other MLB plays on the day on the Mariners First 5 Innings +100 at the Padres (trailed 8-0 after 5) and Orioles First 5 Innings +120 at Brewers (trailed 6-0 after 5). That made us 1-2 on the day for a net loss of $60 based on $100 flat bets, according to the VSiN Pro Picks page. We still felt OK about our overall results as I was glad that I resisted betting on the Heat as a 3-point (closed +3.5) home underdog vs. the Nuggets in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. We passed (a key part of our “dog-or-page philosophy”) because we felt the Nuggets were probably the right side in the zig-zag role after losing Game 2 at home. (Note: we are planning to take the Heat as a short home dog in Game 4 on Friday night with them now back in the zig-zag role). Let’s look for plays on Thursday, though we’re again passing on the underdog Golden Knights with the Panthers in the zig-zag role as they return home after losing Gaems 1 and 2 in Las Vegas. Instead, we’re just going with 2 MLB plays. Note: we’re planning to post our “Team Tuley’s Thoroughbred Takes” column for Saturday’s Belmont Stakes later Thursday morning at VSiN.com/horse-racing/.MLB Thursday Best Bets
Cubs First 5 Innings +115 at Angels: The Angels are still the better team, but we like the pitching matchup with Drew Smyly (5-3, 3.56 ERA) vs. Reid Detmers (0-5, 5.15 ERA). It’s really that simple.
Tigers First 5 Innings +185 at Phillies: We almost made this our Best Bet and hopefully I’m not falling into the trap of feeling the Cubs are the better bet (or safer bet) as a shorter-priced dog. The Phillies are the slightly better team (29-32 vs. 26-33) and we just feel this line is just way too high, so we see value even though the Phillies won the first two games of this series before Wednesday’s game was postponed because of poor air quality and being made up today.