An Important Stretch

We have reached the breaking point. Bodog think the Rays have a better chance of winning the division than the Yankees. I don't have their preseason odds for these, but my guess would be that the Rays were about +4000, and the Yankees +130. A lot changes in two months.

Three weeks ago, the first place Rays were 100:1 to win the World Series at Sportsbook. Today, they're 10:1. As much as I like to talk about how smart the oddsmakers are, it's worth pointing out that the people making these futures lines aren't necessarily the same ones making the lines for individual games. With the futures lines, sometimes they're just not paying attention.

Not all is well in Tampa though. As I mentioned in this week's Covers article, they've played nearly 60% of their games at home, the highest mark in the AL. They've gone 24-10 in those, which means they're only 11-12 on the road. Appropriately, their next nine are away from home, against Boston, Texas, and the Angels.

It's an extremely important stretch for them. BBTF commenter Jim Wisinski-- a real Rays fan, so the complete opposite of me-- puts it into perspective:

This whole road trip is huge for the team. 9 games, against the teams expected to win the AL East and West as well as going to Texas where visiting teams often have some trouble. I've kept my enthusiasm tempered throughout this season (before the season I was sure that they would be at least .500 but didn't have much of any chance at the playoffs) but them going at least 4-5 in this stretch would be huge and remove any doubts for me about their ability to contend and maybe even be the current favorite for the wild card. Fun stuff.

Fun stuff, indeed. Let's just hope it goes better than the last time they visited Boston.

Related: Broken News: Ortiz, Westbrook [BP Unfiltered]

Photo: Yahoo!