bwin Betting

It’s just beyond the baseball season’s halfway point, and the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers covet the best records in baseball. Both have been holding onto first place in their respective divisions for much of the year. Anything can happen, and there’s plenty of season left, but these two hard charging teams have both history and statistics behind them, not to mention stacked lineups and killer rotations.

The Yankees are making a run to be dark horse spoilers and live up to their early billing as 5/2 favorites to win the World Series this year, but they just don’t have the consistency to make it happen. The Red Sox are just too good and too dominant over the Bronx Bombers thus far this year (The Red Sox are 8-0 against the Yanks so far into 2009 with just 9 meetings to go). A crucial benchmark and predictor of playoff hopes in the American League East over the years has been the Yanks v. Sox season series record. It doesn’t help that the Red Sox have outscored The Yankees 55-31 so far this season.

As of July 19, the top 6 odds-on favorites to win it all at linesmaker.com are: The Boston Red Sox (7-2); The New York Yankees (4-1); The Los Angeles Dodgers (4-1); and the Angels, Phillies, and Cardinals with 10-1 odds.

Let’s take a moment to look a few pivotal reasons why the Dodgers and Sox are on a collision course to meet in October.

As of July 19, 2009 the Red Sox and Dodgers are the only teams leading divisions where the top three teams have at least 50 wins to their credit. When the competition is so stacked and these teams are still dominating, it speaks to the character, depth, and focus of these teams and their ability to maintain this torrid pace for the duration of the remaining season schedule. From there, it seems only a catastrophic failure of one of these teams is going to prevent them from carrying all that momentum through the playoffs.

There’s a huge difference between plain old winning and winning big in baseball. An analysis of the Runs Scored/Runs Against ratio of the most promising World Series candidates reveals the Sox and Dodgers also come out on top. As of July 19, according to ESPN.COM:

The Boston Red Sox have outscored their opponents by a combined 82 runs.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have done even better with 99 runs more than their opposition thus far.

The Philadelphia Phillies have scored just 58 more runs than the teams they’ve faced.

The St. Louis Cardinals squeaked by with just 32 more runs than opposing teams.

And…drum roll please…. the out of the gate favorite New York Yankees have put just 64 more runs on the board this year compared to the teams they’ve faced.

Never mind those 26 World Championships Yanks fans always brag about. They have not had a Cinderella Story season in years, and they haven’t even made it to the World Series since the Red Sox won their first World Title in 86 years (Curse Reversed?) back in 2004. Even the highest payroll in baseball can’t get the Yankees back to the dance. It’s going to be a follow the numbers season rather than a follow the money one. And the numbers don’t lie: The Dodgers and Sox are the best teams in baseball and a sure bet to stay that way.