Baseball in November. That's wonderful, isn't it? This is what happens with all these playoff games. And the structure has beaten down some good teams; in fact, any of them that had 99 wins or more.

There has been some criticism, for certain. Are the two best teams in this? The TV ratings for this series are the lowest we've seen for a long time.

And "bullpen" games are taking a lot of flak. One of those took place on Tuesday night, as the Texas Rangers got off to an 10-0 lead, and outlasted the Arizona Diamondbacks 11-7 to move to within one game of their first-ever World Series championship. So will they snag this on the road?

In the World Series betting odds that have been posted on Game 5 by the folks at BetOnline, it's very close to being a pick'em situation:

Texas Rangers (Eovaldi - R) -106
Arizona Diamondbacks (Gallen - R) -104

Over 8.5 Runs -107
Under 8.5 Runs -113

Rangers -1.5 Runs (+146)
D-Backs +1.5 Runs (-166)

The game starts at 8:05 PM ET at Chase Field in Phoenix. And you can place wagers as the game is in progress with Live Betting, available in the sportsbook interface!

The Rangers caught themselves a big break when they got off to the big lead, because it gave them the luxury of being able to extend Andrew Heaney's outing. If it was a close game, Bruce Bochy might have been making moves more liberally, but with that cushion Heaney threw 80 pitches over five innings and gave up just a single run. What this effectively did was save the bullpen some innings.

That's not to say they didn't use a lot of people. Texas sent six more pitchers to the mound. And Arizona did reach those guys for six runs. But nobody threw more than 18 pitches. So we'd have to imagine that they'll have people available. Jose Leclerc only faced two batters.

Three of Arizona's pitchers git slapped around for three runs apiece after Joe Mantiply got himself out of the first inning. What helped them was 5-1/3 innings from Bryce Nelson, who gave up one run on three hits.

What was somewhat encouraging is that the D-Backs didn't give up. They kept pounding away as much as they could, but they were obviously too far behind and ran out of outs.

What Arizona has to worry about now is that Marcus Semien, who had been relatively dormant in the World Series, had a two-run triple and a three-run homer, And well, in the wake of Adolis Garcia's injury, they didn't lose any offense, not for this game anyway, as Travis Jankowski went two for four with two RBI's.

So basically, the Rangers aren't in bad shape at the moment. And if Arizona is going to extend this series, they are going to have to drive a wedge into the Rangers' ten-game road winning streak.

For this game, it's another matchup between Nathan Eovaldi and Zac Gallen. Neither of them was terrific when they faced each other in Game 1. Eovaldi took four straight solid postseason appearances (and wins) into the World Series, but he had to exit in the fifth inning, having given up five runs.

For Gallen, the postseason has been a tough proposition, as he's had a 5.28 ERA, and control has presented some difficulty, as he has walked 13 batters in 27-1/3 frames.

Arizona's bullpen is said to be deeper, but Texas' bullpen is not in bad condition. And as we have mentioned before, there is so much depth in terms of offensive punch in the Rangers' lineup that they can handle an injury to a key guy better than the D-Backs can.

So we'll put a little on them to close this out.

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