World Series Game 7 Betting Preview

World Series Game 7 Betting Preview

Some people say the baseball season is too long. Some people say the games are too long. Screw those people.

This is what we’ve worked for. Seven months, three (or four…or maybe five) hours a night, and we’ve earned ourselves a World Series Game 7. Let’s gooooo!

This series has given fans a roller coaster of emotions, especially for those of us who have a little money on the line. After an absolute slugfest in game 5, the Dodgers evened the series with their second 3-1 home victory of the series.

Tonight, we have Lance McCullers against Yu Darvish in breaking-ball battle. McCullers got the game three win down in Houston, going 5.1 innings and allowing 3 earned runs. He was nails in the ALCS, allowing just one earned run in ten innings.

Lance McCullers won the #Astros the pennant by closing the game with 24 straight knuckle-curves

— David Adler (@_dadler) October 22, 2017

Given his steady diet of curves, McCullers may be experiencing the ill effects of the “slick balls.” No seriously. I linked to this yesterday and it is still relevant today.

His Dodgers’ counterpart certainly struggled thanks to his subpar slider. According to Tom Verducci, Darvish didn’t get one swing and miss on the slider for the first time all season. He’ll look to put that start in the past and prove the Dodgers’ front office was right for trading for him.

After the game ended last night, Pinnacle opened at LAD -110, but had moved to LAD -140 within 20 minutes.

Most other books around the market began opening in the -135 to -145 range. The line ballooned up all the way to -162 at Pinnacle by 9:30 AM eastern, but there was some Astros buyback that has caused the line to settle in at -153 for the past two hours. The Dodgers are getting 57% of both bets and dollars.

Line movement has been an excellent predictor this series, as teams that the line has moved toward at Pinnacle have gone 5-1.

For example, the line opened at -105 for Game 6 and closed at -129 for the Dodgers. Tonight, the line has moved 43 cents in the Dodgers’ direction, but I imagine it comes down a bit more before gametime.

The line being so high surprises me, but I do believe that the Dodgers have an edge with both teams set to pull out all the stops. After Darvish, they can bring Alex Wood out of the pen for multiple innings. I thought he’d be used last night, but then again, I’m not Dave Roberts. They can also turn to Clayton Kershaw if they want to, who has been great in 10 innings this series and horrible in the other 1.2 he’s pitched.

The team at Bet Labs Sports has found some trends that Dodgers’ fans may not want to read, though. As we saw last year, home teams in elimination games haven’t finished the job up to the degree one may expect.

As was the case yesterday, bettors are all over the ‘over’. Seventy seven percent of bettors believe there will be at least eight runs scored, yet the line has remained at 7.5. The wind is blowing out at around 5 MPH which could cause for some more longballs…not to mention the fact that they are juiced up the wazoo. The balls, not the players.

From an individual standpoint, there are still a bunch of players that could take home the MVP.

Last year, Ben Zobrist was 10/1 before game seven to take home the hardware. The big surprise has certainly been Joc Pederson, who wasn’t even originally listed at BetOnline. Young Joc barely played in the second half of the season, didn’t play in the NLDS, and only had 5 at-bats in the NLCS. He’s back to his 2015 all-star form, though, and has stepped up big in the World Series, going 5-14 with three long dongs and two doubles.

Props via BetOnline

Check the latest lines on our MLB free odds page. It’s been one hell of a baseball season! Let’s end it on a strong note.