Thursday got the baseball season off to a great start for me, as I pulled out an easy play of the day victory with the Cardinals’ burial of the Pirates and the Mets and Royals came through to cash my early baseball parlay. Any time I can hit any of my parlay plays, it’s a great day.
We’ve got some early weekend soccer tussles along with baseball action today, so there’s more than enough for a Five for Friday play. Here are my best bets for April 8.
BORUSSIA DORTMUND AND BTTS, +220
If you’re a regular listener of our soccer podcast, you know that Corey loves making the Dortmund BTTS bet. And it’s hard to blame him, as Dortmund’s defense has been fairly leaky, conceding in three of its past five Bundesliga matches. With that in mind and the fact that Dortmund and BTTS has hit in three of four meetings with Stuttgart (and in the other, Stuttgart won 5-1, making it four straight BTTS cashes), this is the time to be aggressive.
WOLVERHAMPTON DRAW NO BET, +160
Newcastle is coming off three straight defeats. Wolves have won three of their past four matches. Wolves are two points off of qualifying for European competition. Newcastle has a grand total of zero wins over teams higher than 12th place. And yet Wolves is getting +160 for a draw no bet and +285 to win straight up? That makes no sense to me, and this is worth a play. Given that four of the past five meetings have finished in stalemate, I do want the draw insurance, and I’m perfectly happy to take +160 for that. If you really want to get aggressive, five of Wolves’ past seven wins have come by exactly one goal, and that line goes off at +440.
ATHLETICS-PHILLIES U2.5 F3, -135
I think the runs will come for the Phillies once they get into the Athletics’ bullpen. But for the first three innings, I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of offense. Frankie Montas is a legitimate ace, and I think he can get through one turn through the Phils’ lineup before the floodgates open. I don’t think Oakland provides much of an offensive threat at all, so I really like this option.
METS ML, -155
Max Scherzer comes back to Washington, and the Nationals just don’t have the hitters to deal with him. The Mets should be able to get the job done against the Nationals’ bullpen after whacking them for seven hits on Thursday, so as long as Scherzer pitches as he usually does, the Mets should move to 2-0.
RANGERS-BLUE JAYS O9, -115
Jose Berrios didn’t exactly do a great job of keeping runs off the board last year for the Blue Jays, and Jon Gray was a disaster down the stretch for the Rangers. The Jays’ lineup should be able to do some mashing in this matchup, and I think there will be plenty of runs scored here.
