Blue Jays vs. Angels picks and odds: Expect plenty of offence, especially from L.A.

The Toronto Blue Jays complete their long and winding road trip on Sunday afternoon against the Los Angeles Angels.

The pregame narrative: Toronto had its four-game win streak snapped last night thanks to a mid-game onslaught from L.A. The Angels have been stellar on the five-inning moneyline, which is where we look for our best bet today.

MLB odds as of 8:50 a.m. ET on 04/09/23.

Blue Jays vs. Angels picks

Best Bet: Angels to lead after five innings (-109)

The Angels’ 5-3 mark so far is not a true indicator of how well they’re playing. L.A. is 7-1-0 at the five-inning mark, with a couple of late-game game gaffes scuffing up their overall record.

Getting them near even money to lead after five innings — as they already have in both games of this series — is quite a welcomed sight.

Especially if you aren’t ready to buy into the purported transformation of Blue Jays starter Yusei Kikuchi.

Last season, Kikuchi pitched to a 5.19 ERA and was demoted to the bullpen in August. His 2023 debut was strong (5.0 IP, three hits, one run), but it also came against the woeful Royals.

This Angels team has seen plenty of Kikuchi, a former Mariner, and usually the results work against the lefty. He has allowed a .344 batting average and .622 slugging percentage to current L.A. hitters across 99 plate appearances, per Baseball Savant.

Key stat: The Angels are 7-1-1 at the five-inning mark against the Blue Jays since the start of last season.

Quick picks

Angels over 4.5 runs (-134): L.A. has cleared this total in half of its eight games, but the upside of an offence featuring Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani is quite high. That helps explain the juice on this line.

Additionally, the matchup with Kikuchi has traditionally worked out well for the Halos. Over the team’s past five matchups against Kikuchi as a starter — three of which have come since 2019 — they’ve topped this total each time.

The Angels have scored 45 runs so far this season (5.6 runs/game).

Over 9.5 runs (-113): Though they haven’t performed quite to the Angels’ level yet, the Blue Jays’ offence (4.7 runs/game) is off to a nice start, too.

Had the teams not combined to go 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position on Friday, plus Matt Chapman’s caught stealing at home, they likely would’ve cleared this total. And then they topped it with ease in L.A.’s 9-5 win on Saturday.

Dating back to last year, Toronto and L.A. have combined to go over this total in five of their past seven matchups.