I was scrolling through Bovada’s 2012 World Series Futures page just out of curiosity because I wanted to see how Baltimore was faring with all this momentum.

I wasn’t surprised to see the Orioles still floundering in the middle of the list, but what did surprise me was the teams above them. Teams like the Philadelphia Phillies (10/1), Los Angeles Angels (18/1) and Boston Red Sox (20/1), which all have shorter odds to win the series than the AL East leaders. This early in the season, oddsmakers are clearly banking on potential than real-word performance right now. I’m a baseball lifer. I get it. Baseball is a marathon and a lot tends to change after the All-Star break.

The Phillies are already showing life with baseball’s longest active winning streak at five and are above .500 for the first time in forever.

But I don’t see the Angels or Red Sox being relevant in the World Series picture. Playoffs? Maybe? Series? Can’t see it.

Not with the way Albert Pujols is hitting. Not with the way Boston has responded to Bobby Valentine. Both teams are at the bottom of their divisions, a combined 36-41 on the year and miles from contention. The Red Sox currently have 12 players on the disabled list, including three of their better hitters in Jacoby Ellsbury, Kevin Youkilis and Carl Crawford, and are scraping together a starting rotation that has been shaken with the criticism of Josh Beckett.

One positive sign is despite an ugly team ERA the team is second in baseball in runs scored with 5.53 per game.

That’s not the case for Los Angeles, which spent $317 million on the final day of the Winter Meetings, only to be seven games out of first place as of Thursday. They’ve tried to make some early adjustments by releasing Bobby Abreu and cutting ties with hitting coach Billy Hatcher, so give them credit. But everyone seems to be banking on Pujols’ line to eventually skyrocket, and I don’t know that it will. He’s ridiculously talented and in now way should I shortchange him. But sometimes guys have terrible years when they switch to the AL, like Adam Dunn did for the White Sox. Not comparing the two talent-wise, just making a point.