The Rangers look to be the team to back in the 2010 World Series.
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The 2010 World Series starts on Wednesday night as the Texas Rangers will be on the road to try and steal home field advantage from the San Francisco Giants. The National League won the All Star game this year for the first time in a long time and that means the NL representative in the World Series gets the home field edge.
However any notion of a home field 'advantage' against the Texas Rangers is questionable. Texas faced a road series to open the 2010 playoffs against the Tampa Bay Rays and all Texas did was win every one of their road games in Florida.
Texas had a home series in the ALCS but they still went 2 of 3 from the Bronx and the only game they lost to New York was when C.C. Sabathia was pitching in game 5 facing elimination and that's an excuseable loss.
Truthfully I'm not convinced that San Francisco would beat ANY team of the 4 post-season qualifers from the American League in a 7 game series. Even if the Giants were up against Minnesota that would just be a coin toss and Texas have already eliminated 2 teams from the post-season that are of higher calibre than the Giants.
San Francisco are best viewed as a Cinderella team that lady-luck has smiled down upon in the post-season but luck only goes so far and when game 1 starts on October 27th at 7:30pm ET, in so many word the clock might as well be striking midnight for the Giants.
Here's the 2010 World Series schedule and note that games 5, 6, and 7 are only played if necessary:
Game 1: October 27th 7:30pm ET at San Francisco
Game 2: October 28th 7:30pm ET at San Francisco
Game 3: October 30th 6:30pm ET at Texas
Game 4: October 31st 8pm ET at Texas
Game 5: November 1st 7:30pm ET at Texas
Game 6: November 3rd 7:30pm ET at San Francisco
Game 7: November 4th 7:30pm ET at San Francisco
Tim Lincecum is over-rated heading into this series and the reason for that is that he is be opposed to Cliff Lee. You can't look at Lincecum and judge him in terms of his historical Cy Young Awards and conclude that he's going to dominate.
The best way to look at Lincecum in the 2010 World Series is simply in terms of the fact that he's not pitching as well as Cliff Lee - and that's that. Lincecum, by his standards, actually had an off year in 2010 as his WHIP and ERA were nowhere near his Cy Young years and neither was his adjusted OPS, the most important stat to look at.
Don't expect him to out-pitch Lee, a pitcher with a good chance of taking down the World Series MVP, and the pitcher who is the best in the game right now as evidenced by his league leading 1.003 WHIP from the regular season.
Don't expect much from Cody Ross of the Giants either. He deserved the NLCS MVP but he was nothing more than a "man of the moment" and his production will change with the color of leaves as the Fall Classic starts.
The Rangers are what Major League Baseball is all about this season and Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz are going to come up big for Texas while Ian Kinsler and Vladimir Guerrero can't be ignored either.
The great news about Texas is that there is still time to jump on the bandwagon as their odds to win the World Series are not so short that a winning bet on them isn't meaningful in terms of providing a bankroll jolt.
Back the Rangers at -125 with
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