USA vs. Israel Baseball 2020 Tokyo Olympics: Odds and expert picks for Friday's group-stage game

Team USA Baseball starts off its 2020 Tokyo Olympics campaign on Friday morning with a group-stage game against Cinderella team Israel at Yokohama Stadium. The Americans won the gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and are ranked fourth in the world. Israel ranks 24th, and this is the first time the nation has had an Olympic representative in a team sport since 1976. Israel lost its opener Thursday morning to South Korea, 6-5 in 10 innings. 

First pitch is set for 6 a.m. ET. Team USA is listed as the -330 favorite in the latest USA vs. Israel odds, while Israel is the +265 underdog. Before you make any 2020 Olympics bets, be sure to see what SportsLine Olympics expert Mike Tierney has to say.

A national sportswriter whose work appears in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, Tierney has covered nine Olympic Games in person. For Rio in 2016, Tierney profited big-time. He told readers to bet Over on Team USA's gold-medal count (41.5) and Over on Team USA's overall medal count (102.5). The result? 46 golds, 121 medals and two easy cashes.

And for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Tierney hit two of his three predictions: Germany (+200) to win the most gold medals and the United States winning Under 10.5 gold medals (+110).

Now, with the Tokyo Summer Olympics underway, Tierney has analyzed every angle of Friday's USA-Israel group-stage baseball matchup to help bettors find the best betting options. 

He has identified an X-factor that has him jumping all over one team on the money line. You ABSOLUTELY need to see what he has to say before locking in your picks. 

Who wins Friday's USA vs. Israel group-stage match in baseball? And what X-factor makes one team a MUST-BACK on the money line? Join SportsLine right now to find out which team in the USA vs. Israel game you should back, all from the expert who has crushed his Olympic picks!

Tierney's pick: 

Baseball, USA vs. Israel (Friday, 6 a.m.)

USA -330

To be clear, this is, at best, a fifth-string Team USA roster. No current major-leaguers are eligible, but the team offers a healthy blend of recent MLB-ers Todd Frazier and Matt Kemp, along with youngsters on the verge of their big-league breakthrough. Though Israel qualified as one of six teams in the mini-field, its national squad is ranked 24th. In their opener, the Israelis did push South Korea, falling 6-5 in extra innings. But this is a country in which barely 1,000 citizens participate in the sport. Israel has compensated by granting citizenship to 20 players from the U.S., only a few of whom you're familiar with. Can a team with a 42-year-old who competes in his spare time while working a day job hang with the nation that birthed the sport? A loss for the Americans would be cataclysmic.

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