And just like that, with a flick of Trey Yesavage’s record-setting rookie wrist, the Toronto Blue Jays are suddenly favored to win the World Series.
Toronto is lined at -250 after taking Game 5 Wednesday night and going up 3-2 in the series. Those odds project a 70 percent likelihood that the Jays will carry this series through to the first Toronto win since 1993 — a year in which most of its roster was not yet born.
The betting market has been slow to wake up to Toronto. The Blue Jays opened with +700 odds before the postseason started, tied with the New York Yankees, even though the Yankees had to play in the wild-card, which the Blue Jays didn’t.
By the way, Toronto opened the regular season at +6600 odds (66-to-1, or less than 1.5 percent likelihood to win) compared to Los Angeles’ +240 (almost 30 percent probability).
World Series odds
The Los Angeles Dodgers, the juggernaut hoping to repeat as champions, opened as favorites as soon as each team’s berth was clinched. L.A.’s -210 opening odds gave them a roughly 68 percent probability of winning the series.
Those odds dipped further right before Game 1 to -225 and then — after the grueling, historic 18-inning Game 3 Dodgers win — they became the overwhelming favorite at -500 odds, or an 83 percent probability.
With superstar Shohei Ohtani poised to take the mound in Game 4. At home.
But then, the improbable happened. The Blue Jays mounted a comeback. Toronto fought back to the tune of a 6-2 Game 4 win and a 6-1 Game 5 victory, and now the series heads back to Canada with Toronto just one win away from glory.
But not so fast: The Dodgers are favored, though narrowly, to win Game 6.
The reason? Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto is starting for L.A. Yamamoto gives the Dodgers a prime chance to win Game 6 after his historic performance in Game 2, a “four-hit, 105-pitch masterpiece.”
Thomas Gable, sportsbook director at the Borgata, confirmed to The Athletic that it’s Yamamoto’s formidable arm that has sportsbooks lining the game this way: “The Dodgers will be favored in Game 6 and 7 due to the starting pitching. Yamamoto, who is starting game 6 for L.A., would be favored against any starter for Toronto, and for Game 7, it would more than likely be Max Scherzer for Toronto and Tyler Glasnow for L.A.”
Of course, if this odds flip has reminded us of anything, it’s that no thing is a sure thing and the odds are, at best, a best-guess and, at worst, a mirror of the crowd’s mentality.
The Dodgers have a lot more to give. As The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal writes, “[S]ince beating the Cincinnati Reds in the Wild Card Series, the Dodgers are batting .214 with a .666 OPS against the Philadelphia Phillies, Milwaukee Brewers and Blue Jays. This, from a team that finished second only to the Yankees during the regular season in runs scored, albeit while going through occasional stretches as curious as this one.”
Can the Dodgers win two straight to become the first team since the 2000 Yankees to go back-to-back? Or will the Blue Jays truly flip the script and clinch their first win in over three decades? Game 6 is in Toronto on Friday night.