The Cleveland line was a reflection on who the oppostion was and who was pitching for them, too, remember: The White Sox with Buehrle.

As far as "helpful guidelines to see who's favored" goes, remember this;

A "line" is not designed to measure the chances of one team or anoher winning the game.

Rather, it's designed to attract an equal amount of wagering on each side.

I find, for example (and the so-called "experts" would agree with me here), that the line on certain "public" teams - the Yankees or Braves in baseball, the Cowboys in football, or the Lakers in basketball, for example - is generally higher than I think it should be.

Also, since such a large amount of betting is generated from NYC, when the local teams are good the lines on their games are usually a bit too high as well.

Finally, keep this is mind:

Another way to look at it, and perhaps a more accurate way, is from the POV of the underdog.

Because while in the Oak-KC game for example, KC had Oakland as the -290 favorite, you don't get +290 if you bet on KC, you only get +240 or +250 or so, so the "real" line, or the true estimated chance of a team winning lies somewhere in the middle.

I can explain what I mean by that if you are really interested, but spare me if you're not.

Also, BTW, since I've been doing some real-life wagering on baseball myself lately, I'm curious to know where the "estimated line after detailed analysis" comes from and exactly what it's supposed to mean (if you care to share).