None of that has scared the number off a fairly tight board, with Seattle sitting as the modest favorite after Monday's statement and Philadelphia still priced like a team that just won a lot of baseball games before that.
Raleigh hit three home runs and Julio Rodriguez added an early three-run shot as Seattle snapped Philadelphia's 9-game winning streak with a 9-2 win, according to TSN. It's the kind of night that resets a series in a hurry — Philadelphia had been steamrolling the NL Central over its last stretch, sweeping St. Louis in the process, and instead heads back out having been thoroughly outslugged.
Philadelphia's margin for error is thinner than the record suggests once you factor in the outfield being held together with depth pieces, while Seattle's counting on Kirby to put his last disaster behind him and on a lineup that just found another gear against a good pitching staff. Whoever settles in first probably takes this one.