Las Vegas is an escape from reality — unless you’re the Chargers.

While the Chargers enter training camp Tuesday energized by a potentially transformative offseason, Vegas sports books have delivered a sobering assessment of where they stand.

The over/under for Chargers wins this season is 8½.

The modest expectations are more of a reflection of the roster than they are of new coach Jim Harbaugh, who moved to the Chargers on a five-year contract after winning a national championship with Michigan.

Harbaugh has won at each of his previous coaching stops, and there’s a feeling of inevitability that he will eventually win here as well.

“I think he’s one of the most elite leaders in all of sports,” said defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, who followed Harbaugh from Michigan.

Harbaugh’s enthusiasm has swept over the organization, which has started taking on his personality.

“I don’t know how you can be in a room with Jim and felt rubbed the wrong way,” general manager Joe Hortiz said.

Hortiz added, “I love him.”

This doesn’t mean the Chargers will suddenly take off the way the San Francisco 49ers did in 2011 during their first season under Harbaugh. That year, the 49ers went 13-3 and reached the NFC championship game. The following year, they played in the Super Bowl.

The season before Harbaugh arrived, the 49ers were 6-10.

What Harbaugh did with the 49ers can’t be overstated. The 49ers were five-time Super Bowl champions but nine years removed from their last winning season when they signed Harbaugh. They were a franchise that was dead in the water.

The speed at which they transformed into contenders was extraordinary, even by Harbaugh’s standards.

Harbaugh was 7-4 in his first season with the University of San Diego. He beat No. 1 USC in his first year at Stanford, but the Cardinal finished just 4-8.

When Harbaugh was at Michigan, he was 0-5 against Ohio State and 3-4 against Michigan State. The Wolverines became national champions in their ninth season under Harbaugh.

Each of Harbaugh’s teams might have taken different paths to success, but their philosophical foundations were similar.

“There’s a style of football that I think we both believe in,” Minter said. “It requires a toughness and a physicality, an ability to win games in multiple ways.”

On offense, that means dominating the offensive line and running the ball.

That rhetoric is familiar to the Chargers. Last year, then-coach Brandon Staley brought in a new offensive coordinator in Kellen Moore with designs of improving the ground game, only for the rushing attack to regress.

More substantive changes have been made under Harbaugh and Hortiz.

The increased emphasis on the running game was exemplified by what they did on the free-agent market, where their most significant financial investment was in Will Dissly, a blocking tight end.

The Chargers could have used their first-round draft choice, fifth overall, on an impact receiver such as Malik Nabers or Rome Odunze. Instead, they selected offensive tackle Joe Alt.

With All-Pro Rashawn Slater on the left side of the offensive line, the 6-foot-9 Alt is expected to play right tackle. The addition of Alt is expected to move Trey Pipkins III from tackle to guard.

The Chargers are expected to pound the ball with 238-pound bruiser Gus Edwards and reclamation project J.K. Dobbins, who are familiar with offensive coordinator Greg Roman’s system from their days together with the Baltimore Ravens.

Harbaugh is hopeful a consistent running game will create an environment in which quarterback Justin Herbert can thrive. Herbert will enter his fifth year in the NFL still in search of his first postseason victory.

Now, the Chargers shouldn’t be humiliated the way they were in a 63-21 loss in Las Vegas last year. They shouldn’t crumble the way they did when they blew a 21-point lead in a playoff loss against the Jacksonville Jaguars the year before. They shouldn’t position Herbert to have to chase the game time and time again.

That doesn’t happen to teams that effectively run the ball.

But there’s a reason the over/under for the Chargers was set at 8½ wins, as their roster looks like a work in progress.

The team’s two best receivers were salary-cap casualties, as Keenan Allen was traded to the Chicago Bears and Mike Williams was released. Khalil Mack and Joey Bosa are elite edge rushers, but the interior part of the defensive line is relatively inexperienced. The team is also thin in the defensive backfield.

Harbaugh has remained upbeat, calling his job with the Chargers “the best damn job I’ve ever had to start out with.”

“Hope it ends that way,” he said.

Eventually, it will.

Harbaugh has won everywhere, and he should win with the Chargers. Reaching that point could take time, however. Owner Dean Spanos will have to remain patient and committed.

St. Louis Cardinals designated hitter Alec Burleson hit a 435-foot solo home run to contribute to the team’s 6-2 win over the Atlanta Braves, but it was his celebration that caught the eyes of baseball fans.

As Burleson rounded the bases, he and his teammates were seen putting a fist up and covering their right ear. Burleson did the move as he rounded third base, and several of his teammates in the dugout followed suit. It was Burleson’s 18th home run of the season.

Baseball fans on social media wondered whether the celebration was inspired by former President Trump and his strength after he was wounded in an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania last week.

Cardinals veteran Matt Carpenter told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the celebration was actually a call back to Burleson’s college days when he was a rapper nicknamed Biscuit. The hand over the ear was allegedly supposed to be invisible headphones.

“Definitely not a political statement, that is off base,” Carpenter said.

TRUMP PITCHES YANKEES GAME OUTING WITH KIM JONG UN AT MICHIGAN RALLY

St. Louis Cardinals’ Alec Burleson swings in the eighth inning against the Braves in Atlanta on July 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

Trump was wounded in the shooting but managed to participate in the Republican National Convention last week, ending with a speech as he accepted the party’s nomination for president.

For Burleson, he was 2-for-5 with two RBI and is now hitting .294 with 59 RBI.

St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Alec Burleson runs the bases after hitting a three-run home run against the Chicago Cubs on July 13, 2024, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

St. Louis moved to 52-47 on the season. The Braves fell to 54-44.

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Dave Roberts didn’t mention Gavin Lux by name when discussing the Dodgers’ infield plans a few weeks ago.

Given the makeup of their roster, he didn’t need to.

When asked on July 3 about the potential of playing Mookie Betts at second base once Betts returns from a broken hand, Roberts was careful to make no guarantees.

“I’m gonna use as much time as possible [before making a decision],” Roberts said. “Because you have to appreciate the people that it could affect.”

No one, of course, stood to be affected as much as Lux. He had gotten all of his playing time this season at second base. And, in the event Betts returned as the everyday second baseman, he seemed most poised to be squeezed out of playing time, given his disappointing play this season in his return from knee surgery.

“There’s no sense in me talking about,” Roberts said, “to potentially get into the psyche of another player.”

Roberts might not have addressed it publicly. But in the last couple of days, Lux has looked like a player motivated to change the narrative, following up a big performance Saturday with another highlight showing Sunday that keyed the Dodgers’ 9-6 win over the Boston Red Sox.

In the first inning Sunday, Lux helped the Dodgers erase an early two-run deficit by lining an RBI double down the left-field line, collecting his third-straight extra-base hit after hitting a home run and a double in a Saturday night win.

Three innings later, Lux struck again, lifting an opposite-field home run to left that gave the Dodgers a 4-2 lead en route to their sweep-clinching victory at Dodger Stadium.

Lux finished the day three for four overall (he also stole a base) to raise his batting average to .225 (tying his high mark on the year) and OPS to .609 (the highest it has been at any point this season).

On the whole, Lux’s numbers are still underwhelming. Two years removed from his breakout 2022 campaign — when he batted .276, had an above-league-average OPS+ and led the NL with seven triples — the 26-year-old has yet to consistently become a bottom-of-the-order sparkplug again, thanks in no small part to the torn ACL he suffered last spring.

However, there have been signs his swing is trending upward.

Since crossing the 150 at-bat threshold on May 31 — the marker Roberts wanted Lux to reach before making sweeping evaluations of his game — the infielder is batting .250 with six doubles, four homers, 15 RBIs and a .700 OPS in 31 games.

His defense at second base, the position he moved back to this spring after defensive struggles at shortstop, has been superb.

And, even with Betts now just weeks away from a return, Lux’s role on the roster remains important — especially after starting shortstop Miguel Rojas exited Sunday’s game early because of forearm tightness in his right throwing arm.

Lux wasn’t alone in leading the Dodgers to a series sweep of the Red Sox.

The Dodgers hit a season-high six home runs, with Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernández, Austin Barnes, Jason Heyward and Shohei Ohtani also going deep on a warm afternoon at Chavez Ravine. Ohtani’s 473-foot blast in the fifth nearly cleared the roof above the right-field pavilion, marking his National League-leading 30th homer of the year.

On the mound, James Paxton bounced back from a two-run first-inning homer by Jarren Duran to pitch into the sixth, giving up just one more run in his longest start in more than a month. Daniel Hudson, meanwhile, got the save after closer Evan Phillips gave up three runs in the ninth (he’s given up nine earned runs in his last eight outings).

And, after dropping six of seven games entering this week’s All-Star break, the Dodgers emerged from it with their first three-game winning streak since late June, pushing their lead in the NL West to eight games.

Still, Lux’s sudden offensive explosion could have the biggest ramifications on the Dodgers’ long-term outlook.

If he stays hot, he could warrant continued at-bats against right-handed pitching, with Betts perhaps playing shortstop on those days (Betts was the Dodgers’ everyday shortstop before his hand fracture).

If Rojas is forced to miss any extended time, Lux might become an everyday player himself, a distinction he hasn’t enjoyed for any prolonged stretch yet this season.

There are trade ramifications, too, with the deadline looming next Tuesday.

A struggling Lux might have prompted the Dodgers to look for more infield help. Given his diminished playing time, it’s possible Lux could have been a trade chip himself.

But the Dodgers had not yet lost faith in their former first-round draft pick. They’d been holding out hope that, at some point, he’d overcome his slow start and be an important piece in their plans to contend for a World Series.

This weekend, Lux flashed long-awaited signs that level of play is still possible.

For the first time in a long time, he looked like someone who could still be a key cog in their lineup.