Daily Sports Betting Preview 7/24/2020: MLB Betting, PGA Wagering, The 5 Tournament

• The New York Mets are -138 odds favorites against the Atlanta Braves.
• The PGA’s 3M Open brings some three-ball betting to the table.
• The 5 Tournament features some great 3-on-3 basketball action.

LAS VEGAS - Welcome to this Friday edition of the Daily Sports Betting Preview!

Today, the Preview takes a look at some great betting opportunities, starting with the MLB’s return.

After that, the Preview examines some of the three-ball betting opportunities on the PGA’s 3M Open.

Finally, the Preview looks at some basketball, but not from the NBA, from The 5 Tournament, a 3-on-3 basketball tournament.

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

MLB Betting

The MLB is back, and after an action-packed opening day featuring some of the best teams in the league, bettors have a wealth of options to wager on tonight.

Only four teams played last night, so tonight marks the true opening of MLB betting - this is where all the rest of the teams play.

There are 14 games scheduled for Friday. The earliest starts at 4:10 p.m. EST, and the latest starts at 10:10 p.m. EST.

Let’s take a look at an early game:

This is an interesting line. The Braves are widely regarded as a better team on balance than the Mets are.

So, given that, why are the Mets favored in this matchup?

It likely comes down to two major factors - the location of the game and the starting pitching.

The Mets are the home team in this game, and that tends to matter in baseball a decent amount of the time, especially in the context of the familiarity of hitters and pitchers with the dimensions of their own ballpark.

As far as the pitching, the Braves are sending out Mike Soroka, a 2019 All-Star, and a very good pitcher, especially for his age (22).

The Mets, on the other hand, are sending out Jacob DeGrom, arguably the best pitcher in baseball.

DeGrom has won the NL Cy Young Award for the past two years and has been utterly dominant in that time.

Given the gulf between the starting pitching, and the fact that the Mets are playing at home, it is not entirely surprising to see a line like this.

PGA 3M Betting

The PGA’s 3M Open has entered day two, and that means that the three-ball pairings are getting quite interesting.

There are several great ones for golf bettors to take a look at today, so let’s start out with a good one.

In this matchup, Brooks Koepka is a heavy favorite, with +110 odds, while Charles Howell III and Keith Mitchell both clock in as fairly large underdogs, with +225 odds.

The major aspect of this matchup that golf bettors should examine is whether or not these odds accurately reflect the skill level of the players.

On the one hand, Koepka is the most famous of this group, by a large margin, and that generally means that the public will have more money on him than is reasonable.

On the other, Koepka is also the best golfer of this group, so PGA bettors have to weigh how they feel about this line and about Koepka.

This matchup is a much more esoteric and balanced one. Harris English leads the group at +140 odds, closely followed by Dylan Frittelli at +160.

Denny McCarthy makes up the last man in the group, with odds of +235.

English is currently ranked 126th in the world, while Frittelli sits at 104th on the PGA’s rankings.

McCarthy, as on the odds boards, makes up the last man, ranked 195th in the world.

There is a lot to consider with this three-ball bet. Bettors could simply take the odds on the highest-ranked player, Frittelli, or they could focus on prior history on this golf course.

The options are limitless.

The 5 Tournament Betting

The 5 Tournament brings three basketball games to the table today, and the action should be fairly decent.

The 5 Tournament is a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, played in the halfcourt only. The teams are composed of various ex-NBA and amateur players.

The current standings in the Tournament are as follows:

LATEST STANDINGS! #the5tournament pic.twitter.com/paiNc9wxPt

— The 5 Tournament (@The5Tournament) July 23, 2020

Let’s take a look at one of today’s matches.

This is a seriously large spread. The Over/Under line for total points scored in the entire game is set at 151.5, which makes this 15.5 point spread stand out even more.

This line appears to be less of an endorsement of Texas than it is an indictment of New York’s play so far.

New York has been the worst team in the Tournament through the first three games, and it is the only team to not have a win yet.

Texas has not been incredible, but they are 2-1, and the only loss they’ve taken is to the team that currently sits atop the standings, Sacramento.

This spread is by far the biggest of the day in The 5 Tournament, so bettors should keep an eye on this one.

Happy Betting!