Article courtesy OddsShark (@OddsShark)
After finishing with the best record in baseball during the shortened regular season, the Los Angeles Dodgers enter the 2020 playoffs as heavy favorites on the MLB betting lines against the Milwaukee Brewers in their wild-card series matchup this week.
The Dodgers are listed as -250 favorites on the MLB odds at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com for Game 1 of their best-of-three series against the Brewers on Wednesday night, and as heavy -420 chalk at online betting sites on the overall series prices.
Los Angeles closed out its campaign on an 8-2 run to post an overall record of 43-17, putting them six games up on the San Diego Padres in the National League West standings. The Brewers, meanwhile, finished the season with a 29-31 mark to claim the eighth seed in the playoffs. Milwaukee is just 5-5 in its past 10 games, and went 14-17 on the road this past season.
That has the Brewers set as +310 underdogs to win the series and as +210 underdogs for Game 1 on Wednesday night as they prepare to face Dodgers right-hander Walker Buehler (1-0, 3.44 ERA) in the opener. Despite picking up just one win on the season Buehler allowed two or fewer earned runs in six of his eight outings, striking out 42 batters and walking 11.
Clayton Kershaw (6-2, 2.16 ERA) will then get the ball for the Dodgers in Game 2 of the series on Thursday, with the left-hander only allowing more than three earned runs in one of his 10 outings on the season – and that was his first start of the campaign back on Aug. 8. Kershaw struck out 62 batters while walking just eight over his 58.1 innings of work this year.
The Dodgers and Brewers found themselves at opposite ends of the World Series odds at sportsbooks heading into the playoffs, with Los Angeles the +325 favorite and Milwaukee the +3500 longshot. The two teams didn’t face each other this past season, with Los Angeles holding a slight edge at 4-3 in their seven matchups in 2019. The UNDER paid off five times.
Check out OddsShark on Twitter and Instagram or head to YouTube for analysis on this week’s top games. As well, the OddsShark Computer serves up daily MLB picks for bettors.
