With just five wins in 13 games so far in the month of July, the Toronto Blue Jays are once again mired in last place in the AL East division standings, and as a result their World Series odds continue to freefall as teams get set to resume their seasons following the All-Star game.
Back in the height of the Jays’ off-season – after they had gone out and acquired the likes of R.A. Dickey, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, and Jose Reyes – the team moved all the way to the top of the odds to win the World Series at sportsbooks tracked by OddsShark.com, sitting at 15/2 at some shops.
It’s the team geographically closest to the Jays that leads baseball title odds, as well as AL MVP and AL Cy Young award odds (Detroit, with Max Scherzer and Miguel Cabrera).
After a slow start in April, the Blue Jays slipped to 14/1 on that list, but they stabilized at around 18/1 in the midst of their winning streak in June. However, with ugly results leading into the all-star break, Toronto is now in the bottom half of the pack at 40/1 on the odds to win the World Series.
The Blue Jays sit at 45-49 on the season with the All-Star game now in the books for another year, which has them in last place in the AL East standings at 11.5 games behind the division-leading Boston Red Sox.
Toronto fans might take some solace in the fact that their team has the best winning percentage (.479) of all fifth-place teams.
Sitting as the favourite on the World Series odds board at the start of the unofficial second half of the MLB season are the Detroit Tigers at 13/2, with the St. Louis Cardinals at 7/1, the Atlanta Braves at 8/1, and the Red Sox at 9/1 – four division leaders. The Los Angeles Dodgers are also at 9/1 despite the fact they trail the Arizona Diamondbacks (20/1) by 2.5 games in the NL West standings.
The Oakland Athletics are at 10/1, with the Texas Rangers just behind them at 12/1 on those World Series odds – the Rangers trail the A’s by two games in the AL West standings. Joey Votto and the Cincinnati Reds sit at 15/1 odds to win the World Series at the sportsbooks; they’re five games behind the Cardinals in the NL Central.
Back in the AL East, the Tampa Bay Rays are at 16/1 on the World Series odds, with the Baltimore Orioles at 18/1, and the New York Yankees at 28/1. The Yankees have a laundry list of injured players heading into the second half of the season (Granderson, Rodriguez, Teixeira, Youkilis) and are six games back of Boston in fourth place.
Toronto gets back on the field on Friday as they open up a three-game home series against the Rays; the Dodgers then head to town for interleague action next week.
