By now, BetOnline patrons know that the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers were able to come through with not one, but TWO victories on the road to win their respective league championship series. So here they are in the World Series, where truly anything can happen.

With the Series getting underway on Friday night, who will have enough of an edge to win this thing?

The baseball betting odds on the World Series look like this right now:

Texas Rangers -167
Arizona Diamondbacks +147

Arizona won only 84 games in the regular season, and that is the third fewest victories for any team that has reached the World Series. If you remember, they controlled the NL West early in the season, until the Dodgers really began to catch fire.

None of that mattered when the two teams met in the National League Divisional Series. The D-Backs roughed Clayton Kershaw up real big in Game 1 and Los Angeles never recovered, en route to a 3-0 'Zona sweep. Before that, Torey Lovullo's team had swept a pair of games from Milwaukee.

This team has the ability to use speed. The Diamondbacks took advantage of new MLB rules limiting pickoff attempts and finished second to the Cincinnati Reds in stolen bases. So that's one thing the Rangers have to worry about.

It's well-known that Arizona doesn't have the same kind of firepower that Texas has. Where they have to make up for it is the bullpen. Lovullo has used it well in the postseason, with Paul Sewald proving to be very dependable and Kevin Ginkel, in the setup role, pitching a "clean sheet" in the playoffs.

Arizona will have to get another terrific effort from Ketel Marte, who was MVP of the NLCS. And obviously, the guy who can really get things going for them offensively is Corbin Carroll, who will be named Rookie of the Year and who came through in Game 7 with three hits and two steals. But in the first six games, he was relatively quiet.

Texas won all four road games against Houston, but maybe that shouldn't be a big surprise, as the Astros had difficulty winning at Minute Maid Park. But the Rangers are now on a roll where they have won their last eight games as the visitor.

They'll have to pull up some power to win this, and considering what they have, that may not be hard. They have punch throughout the lineup, with seven players having hit at least 15 homers. Adolis Garcia (BetOnline's MVP favorite at +425) and Marcus Semien had over 100 RBI's; catcher Jonah Heim had 95. Corey Seager had 96. Seager will likely be second to Shohei Ohtani in the MVP voting; he hit .327 and won the World Series MVP three years ago.

On top of all this, the Rangers finished third in the majors with an on-base average of .337.

They added something to that lineup late in the season with Evan Carter, who hit five homers in 62 at bats, with a .412 on-base.

They bring two solid starters in Nathan Eovaldi and Jordan Montgomery, which probably gives them an edge here. Obviously there is more depth throughout the lineup than Arizona has. The D-Backs' biggest power guy, Christian Walker (33 HR) is hitting .179 in the postseason. And Evan Longoria, the third baseman. is at .177 without a homer in his last 30 games.

The bullpen for the Rangers may be perceived as a weakness, but Jose Leclerc (2.68 ERA, 1.14 WHIP) shored up the situation a little. Josh Sborz has been strong (1.04 ERA, 0.69 WHIP in postseason), and we're interested in seeing how Bruce Bochy is going to handle the guys who have, at times, been starters, like Dane Dunning, Jon Gray and Andrew Heaney. If Max Scherzer had shown us anything, it would change the face of this scenario, because he's the third starter.

Bochy has three World Series titles to his credit, and has taken three different teams to the World Series, and that has to count for something.

Of course, Arizona has enough mental toughness not to count them out. And that is what we think might help them extend this to seven games. But while we may not like laying -167 with Texas, we might be interested in +375 for them to win in six, and/or +400 to win in seven.

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