The Giants aren't even in first place in their division, but that's not stopping Las Vegas from showing them some love: they're currently 11/1 (the third-lowest odds) to win the World Series, according to Bovada.lv.
That puts the Giants behind only the Yankees (9/2) and Rangers (5/1) in terms of being favored to win the title this season.
They're tied with a pari other teams, as the Nationals and Angels both have odds of 11/1 to win the World Series. The division-leading Dodgers are 16/1 to win the title.
Naturally, Vegas also likes the Giants to win the NL Pennant -- they're tied as the faves for repping the National League in the World series at 9/2 with the Nationals. (The Dodgers are 7/1.)
And as you might expect, the Giants are the favorites to win the NL West title this season, checking in at 10/11. The Dodgers are 8/5 to win the division and the Diamondbacks are 4/1. The Padres and Rockies didn't make Bovada's cut.
A pair of Giants also get some love in terms of odds for individual awards, as Melky Cabrera and Matt Cain show up on the leaderboards for MVP and Cy Young, respectively.
Melky is just 15/1 to win the NL MVP, well behind Andrew McCutchen, David Wright, Joey Votto, Ryan Braun, Carlos Beltran, Matt Kemp, Carlos Gonzalez and even R.A. Dickey. In that sense, if you think the Giants can win the NL West and finish with one of baseball's best records (which is possible) and also think that the Melkman can repeat his first half (which seems much more unlikely), it's a pretty good bet. Melky just doesn't have the homer and steals numbers to nab this award, especially if some of the guys ahead of him keep raking.
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Cain on the other hand looks like a great bet. He's 11/2 (5.5:1 for you math majors) to win the NL Cy Young. That puts him behind and/or tied with R.A. Dickey, Johnny Cueto, Gio Gonzalez and James McDonald. All of those guys had great first halves this year and it's not Cain's award to win, even if he is starting the All-Star Game on Tuesday night. But how many of those guys do you fully trust to be as consistent in the second half of the season as they were in the first? Cain's the only guy on my list, personally.
Now, whether or not you want to put your mortgage on the Giants is up to you -- they're favored in many cases so it's not exactly a great value bet. But it's a nice feeling to be halfway through the season and still have people buzzing about San Francisco's baseball team.
