The Toronto Blue Jays have re-established themselves as a strong futures wager following their ALDS sweep of the Texas Rangers as they prepare to take on the Cleveland Indians in the ALCS at +225 odds to win the World Series at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com.
Toronto advanced to the ALCS for a second straight year after dominating the favoured Texas Rangers in three straight victories, fuelling the six-game winning streak they take to Cleveland ahead of Friday’s Game 1 matchup at Progressive Field.
The Blue Jays are peaking at the perfect time after surviving a September swoon that pushed them to the brink of elimination from post-season contention in the final week of the campaign. After leading the AL East for much of the second half of the season, the Blue Jays’ late struggles left them facing elimination in the AL wild-card game.
Toronto, though, responded in dramatic fashion, with Edwin Encarnacion’s walk-off home run sealing a 5-2 victory over Baltimore and clinching the club’s seventh post-season berth since 1985.
The Blue Jays followed up with a pair of statement victories in Texas, outscoring the Rangers by a 15-4 margin, before closing out that series with a 7-6 win at home on Sunday.
However, Toronto was streaky at best on the road in the final weeks of the regular season, finishing on a 12-15 run that included a pair of three-game losing streaks according to the OddsShark MLB Database.
The Indians, meanwhile, are coming off a three-game sweep of the Boston Red Sox in their ALDS series, including a pair of wins as betting underdogs, punching their ticket to the ALCS for the first time since 2007.
Like the Blue Jays, Cleveland’s early post-season success has buoyed the odds of the team ending a 68-year World Series drought, which have moved to +375 after trailing at +900 prior to their series with Boston.
Cleveland also rides a six-game win streak into the ALCS and has been a standout club on home turf, going 17-5 in their past 22 overall. The Indians finished the regular season alongside Texas with an AL-best 53-28 home record.
However, the Indians have been less than dominant in home dates with Toronto, posting a pair of wins this season in three contests, each decided by a single run, to improve to a middling 5-5 in their past 10 such games, scoring three or fewer runs on five occasions.
Conversely, the Blue Jays have dominated Cleveland in recent clashes at Rogers Centre, outscoring the Indians by a 26-7 margin in their last two meetings there, back in early July, lifting them to 7-4 in their past 11 such games.
