MLB Baseball Betting: Toronto Blue Jays at Cleveland Indians
The Toronto Blue Jays spent much of the 2016 Major League Baseball season putting themselves into good positions and then not taking advantage of them. They were one of the most erratic teams in the league and kept finding a way to ‘snatch defeat from the jaws of victory’. They’ve apparently decided to atone for that at the best possible time. The Blue Jays have so far run roughshod through the postseason winning their wildcard game and sweeping the Texas Rangers in the AL Divisional Series. Now they’ll take on the Cleveland Indians in a best of 7 series for the right to represent the American League in the World Series.
For much of the second half of the season the Boston Red Sox were the dominant team in the American League East. They took control of the division with a 13 win in 15 games run which included an 11 game winning streak. They never recovered after it ended, losing 5 of their final 6 games and getting swept by Cleveland in the AL Divisional series. The Indians advanced to the ALCS for the first time since 2007. For the Tribe this series is sort of ‘deja vu all over again’ facing the Blue Jays who play a similar style to the Red Sox.
The Indians finished the regular season in a three way tie for the #2 home record in baseball (along with Texas and the LA Dodgers) behind the Chicago Cubs. Even so, the head to head games with Toronto were very even this season and have been for several years. Cleveland took 4 of 7 head to head with 2 of 3 at home. Over the last three seasons the Jays have won 11 of 20 head to head splitting 10 games on the Indians’ home field. Both starting pitchers are in good form–Corey Kluber has a 2.08 L3 ERA while the Jays’ Marco Estrada has a 1.33 ERA and a 7.87 WHIP in his last three. The Indians won 12 of Kluber’s 17 home starts this year.
The pricing of this series is interesting since Cleveland has home field advantage and is a -135 favorite for Game 1 but Toronto is a -145 favorite to win the series. Hard to justify either line in a series that looks like a coin flip. We’ll take the Jays and the red hot Marco Estrada as an underdog in Game 1.
BET TORONTO BLUE JAYS +125 OVER CLEVELAND INDIANS
