ASA

ASA TOP PLAY 10* ON Money Line: Los Angeles Angels over Oakland A's, Monday at 9:40 PM ET

One of the most common betting strategies in baseball is to ride streaks.  In that case we are most definitely bucking the trend here but this is not a normal MLB season either.  Yes the A's are the hottest team in baseball but there is a reason they are priced as a rather small favorite in this spot.  It is simply an awful spot for Oakland.  The Athletics just wrapped up a series sweep of the hated division rival Astros which included a benches clearing brawl in yesterday's game.  Suffice to say emotions ran very high throughout that series and this is absolutely a flat spot for Oakland now as the A's are on the road to face the Angels.  Oakland has a great record on the season and has won 9 straight games but they've also had an edge in that they have only played 4 road games.  By the way, the A's hit just .198 in those 4 games away from home and now face a pitcher, Julio Teheran, whom they are not familiar with as he had spent his career in the National League.  Teheran enters this game having held opponents to a .235 batting average while compiling a 3.67 ERA - those are his career numbers!  He is a solid starting pitcher and certainly gets the nod in this game over the A's Sean Manaea as he had a lot of early season struggles.  The left-hander is 0-2 with an 8.03 ERA in his first 3 starts and has not been able to make it through 5 innings in any of those starts!  Los Angeles has a .433 slugging percentage in home games this season which ranks them 3rd in the American League.  Per our computer math model, this game has upset written all over it.  Bet the Angels on the money line in late night action Monday

ASA top play 10* on: Denver Nuggets +5.5 over LA Lakers, 9PM ET This is an interesting number considering how well Denver has looked in the Bubble games compared to how bad the Lakers have played. Let us examine this number a little closer. The Lakers were just favored by minus -5.5 points against the Pacers and Thunder in recent games and lost both to teams’ inferior to the current Nuggets. The Washington Wizards have not won a game in the Bubble and have been horrendous offensively with a 1.031 points per possession efficiency rating. Believe it or not, the Lakers have been WORSE than the Wizards on the offensive end with an OEFF of .977PPP. That can’t be said about a Denver offense that is 5th in the NBA in offensive efficiency in the five Bubble games at 1.176 points per possession. The Nuggets have gotten a huge scoring boost from Michael Porter Jr. who is averaging over 25PPG and 10RPG in the Bubble. They also got Jamal Murray back from injury who paid immediate dividends in the Nuggets win over Utah with 23-points, 12-rebounds and 8-assists. And we haven’t even gotten to Nikola Jokic who continues to play at a very high level. The Lakers are 2-4 SU in their six games in the restart and are mainly concerned about staying healthy for the playoffs. The Lakers season point differential is +6.2PPG which is 4th best in the league. In the Bubble games they have a negative differential of -7.2PPG second to last of the teams still playing. This Denver team is going to be a dangerous out in the Playoffs and the Lakers just aren’t engaged at this point in time. Easy call with the Underdog here.