LA teams highlight week slate
Posted on July 28, 2009 | 11:52 PM ET Filed under:As the Major League Baseball regular season rolls past the 100-game mark this week, the prospects of an all-LA World Series continue to improve. This weekend the leaders of both West divisions do their things on the road, as the Dodgers visit Atlanta for a three-game series with the Braves and the streaking Angels hit the Twin Cities for a three-game set with the Twinkies.
The Dodgers have been threatening to run away with the NL West for a good part of the last couple of months, but haven't quite done it yet. After dropping the opener of a four-game series in St. Louis on Monday night 6-1 to Chris Carpenter, Joe Torre's troops are 6-5 since the All-Star break. And they still own an eight-game lead over the Colorado Rockies in the NL West.
Atlanta has played its way back into relevance, going 8-3 since the All-Star break. Over the weekend, the Braves took two of three games from the Brewers in Milwaukee. So as Bobby Cox's boys begin a three-game series in Florida on Tuesday night, they sit in a tie for second place with the Fish in the NL East, seven games back of the first-place Philadelphia Phillies. But the ATL-ers have also pulled to within three games of the race-leading Colorado Rockies in the NL wild card standings.
This is the first encounter between these two former division rivals this season. Last year, the Braves took four of six games from the Dodgers, and five of those six games stayed under the totals. But all those games were played before LA got OF Manny Ramirez in that trade from Boston.
The Angels, despite playing without OFs Vlad Guerrero and Torii Hunter, have been winning games and scoring runs in bunches recently. Even after losing the opener of a three-game series with the Indians on Monday night 8-6 (blowing a two-run lead in the ninth inning), LA of A has won nine of its first 12 games since the break, and is averaging 6.4 RPG over that span. Overall, the Angels are on a 22-8 run, and lead the AL West by 2.5 games over the second-place Texas Rangers.
Minnesota, meanwhile, after taking the opener of a three-game series with the Chicago White Sox on Monday night 4-3, is 5-6 since the All-Star break. But with the rest of the AL Central also treading water in recent weeks, the Twins find themselves in third place in their division, just three games back of the first-place ChiSox.
Minnesota has taken four of seven games from the Angels so far this season, and six of those seven games have gone over the totals, as the games have averaged a robust 11.7 runs per.
As of Tuesday morning, Oddsmaker.com is listing the Dodgers as +150 favorites to win the National League pennant this year, and at +600 to win the World Series. The Braves, meanwhile, are getting +1,200 to win the league championship, and +2,000 to win the Series.
And Oddsmaker is also offering the Angels at +600 to win the American League pennant, and at +1,200 to win the World Series, while the Twins are getting +1,500 to win the AL title and +3,000 to win the Series.
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