The Toronto Blue Jays were 7/1 favourites to win the World Series in April and 25/1 pretenders by the end of May.
Thursday, on the heels of a recent 11-game win streak and one four-game series in Boston away from the official midpoint of the season for the team, Toronto is climbing the odds ladder again after getting knocked down nearly 20 rungs, sitting at 12/1, according to several books tracked by OddsShark.com.
"The Jays were 18/1 last week and now they will really get a chance to assert themselves over the next eight days as they play a pair of four-game series’ against the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers," said Mike Pickett, a handicapper at OddsShark.com.
"Or they could fall off the ladder again."
Toronto sat as a World Series favourite in spring training after their off-season flurry brought them significant upgrades for both their lineup and their starting rotation. But those upgrades didn’t translate into wins over the first couple months of the season.
In June, however, the Blue Jays rattled off an 11-game winning streak and they’re now back over the .500 mark heading into the opener of a four-game series at Fenway Park on Thursday night. They are 8-1 in their past nine games at Fenway, according to MLB database results.
Overall, Toronto is still sitting back in fifth place in the AL East standings, but they’re only 6.5 games behind first-place Boston right now.
At 12/1 on the MLB futures lists, the Jays are tied with Boston and behind only the Tigers, St. Louis Cardinals, Atlanta Braves, and Texas Rangers.
Those odds would improve even more if Toronto manages to win its series against Boston on the weekend – and a sweep would tighten up the AL East considerably. When the Blue Jays played in Boston from May 10-12 they won two of the three matchups, including a 12-4 laugher in the finale of the series against Canadian Ryan Dempster.
Dempster is in line to start for Boston on Sunday afternoon against Mark Buehrle, who is just 6-9 in 21 career appearances against the Red Sox with a 4.57 ERA. The lefthander, though, held Boston to one run over seven innings in his May 11 outing.
Thursday night’s probable starters are Chien-Ming Wang and Jon Lester, with Toronto’s Josh Johnson and Esmil Rogers then projected to take to the mound on Friday night and Saturday afternoon against Boston starters Felix Doubront and Allen Webster.
Overall Toronto is just 4-5 against Boston this season, but the Red Sox are just 5-5 in their past 10 games heading into the series. Toronto is 8-2 over its last 10 contests, but just 9-12 overall this season against left-handed starters.
