Daily Sports Betting Preview 10/15/2020: MLB NLCS, CJ Cup, NRL

• The Los Angeles Dodgers are -240 to tie the NLCS at 2-2 today.
• The CJ Cup odds boards are led by Jon Rahm at +850.
• The Penrith Panthers are -220 to defeat the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

LAS VEGAS - Today’s Daily Sports Betting Preview covers a couple of interesting wagering opportunities.

First, in the world of MLB, the Dodgers came alive last night, and their series with the Braves continues tonight. Then, the CJ Cup on the PGA Tour brings some top level golf action to the table.

Finally, Australia’s NRL features two interesting rugby matches.

There’s a lot to cover, so let’s get started!

MLB NLCS Betting

The Atlanta Braves were cruising, having taken the first two games of the NLCS off of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Then the Dodgers scored 11 runs in one inning. They won the game 15-3. The Dodgers were favorites in Wednesday’s game, as one might expect.

They are easily the best team in baseball, and if they were down 3-0 in the series, they would likely still be favorites.

Now, down 2-1, they look to capitalize off of the momentum they built with their monstrous victory on Wednesday.

After being pulled from Game 2’s starting slot due to back spasms, Clayton Kershaw is set to take the mound for the first time this series.

Kershaw is an odds mover, despite his reputation for being a bit of a playoff choker. That reputation, earned or unearned, does exist.

Here is the updated Clayton Kershaw playoff start. The sixth inning dropped this one from green to yellow -- though it's the best of the yellows.

It's the 20th time in 27 playoff starts that Kershaw allowed ≤ three runs in his first six innings. pic.twitter.com/OLajHgVCOh

— Jon Weisman (@jonweisman) October 8, 2020

The major disconnect between Kershaw’s playoff reputation and Kershaw’s performances is not that he’s consistently bad in the playoffs. It’s more that he’s not consistently elite. He generally puts up fairly decent performances, all things considered, they just aren’t up to his lofty standards.

With Kershaw on the mound, and the memory of scoring 11 runs in an inning fresh in the minds of MLB bettors, the Dodgers are more favored than ever.

Before Game 2, when Kershaw was expected to pitch, the Dodgers were -190 favorites.

Now, with Kershaw pitching and the Dodgers bats seemingly alive, they’re more favored, even though they’re still down a game in the series.

This is a very interesting turn of events and makes the Braves a plausible underdog play for MLB bettors.

CJ Cup Betting

The CJ Cup starts this Thursday, and there are two wagers worth highlighting involving it.

First, let’s take a look at the straight up odds to win the CJ Cup.

At the top is Jon Rahm, followed by Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele. Rahm is the only golfer with odds under +1000 to win the tournament

After Schauffele is Matthew Wolff, and then there’s a fairly large gap before Collin Morikawa at +2200.

Now, let’s take a look at the odds of a wire-to-wire winner, which is to say, the odds of someone leading all of the rounds of the Cup on the way to a win.

These odds are going to be much much longer.

Rahm is once again at the top of the odds boards, with his +5000 odds being the shortest on the board by far.

Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Xander Schauffele once again make up the second tier, but this time, there’s no difference between their odds - all of them are at +6600.

Tyrrell Hatton makes an appearance as someone with a fairly large relative gap between their placement on the odds boards and on the wire-to-wire boards. He’s tied with Patrick Cantlay on the wire-to-wire boards, while Cantlay outstrips him on the odds to win boards.

Similarly, Hideki Matsuyama has longer odds than Hatton to be a wire-to-wire winner, but shorter odds to win outright.

This is an interesting situation, and it’s up to golf bettors to figure out where the inconsistencies lie and take advantage of them.

NRL Betting

The NRL features two excellent matches early in the morning, which means that rugby bettors would be well advised to get their wagers in now.

That is, unless they wish to wager at 4:50 a.m. EST.

The two matches that start at that time are as follows.

First, a match between the Melbourne Storm and the Canberra Raiders and then, a match between the Pentrith Panthers and South Sydney Rabbitos.

The Storm are six point favorites on the spread against the Canberra Raiders - in other words, the spread is reflecting a victory by a try and a conversion.

The two teams are not far removed in terms of wins and losses, with the Storm boasting a 16-4 record while the Raiders are 14-6. This looks like a matchup between two high level teams. It is worth noting, however, that the Storm boast a far higher point differential than the Raiders.

The Storm’s point differential is 258, while the Raiders sit at 128.

The Penrith Panthers sit in first place in the NRL, with an astonishing 18-1-1 record, meaning they’ve only lost once this season.

The Rabbitohs are in sixth place, with a record of 12-0-8, and the fourth best point differential in the league.

This also looks like it could be a high quality matchup, and Rugby bettors could gain a lot of value wagering on both of these events.

Happy Betting!