For the second straight October, the Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays will meet in the American League Division Series, and not only that, it will be another installment of what has rapidly become one of the baseball’s hottest rivalries.
Despite the fact that the two teams only typically meet twice during the regular season, a lot has happened since they met for the first time in last year’s postseason. Of course, everyone remembers Jose Bautista’s iconic bat flip from his memorable deciding homer, as Toronto managed to outlast the Rangers in the maximum five games after overcoming a 2-0 series deficit. Of course, that wouldn’t be the last fireworks between these two AL clubs since then.
Flash forward to May, as the Rangers and Blue Jays met in Arlington for Toronto’s only trip to Texas this season. Once again, it would be Bautista in the center of it all, as he violently and illegally slid into emerging Rangers youngster Rougned Odor at second base trying to break up a double play. Odor simply wouldn’t take it and immediately approached Joey Bats right after the slide, leading him to literally land a hard punch square into Bautista’s face. Both benches quickly cleared, leading to a little more physicality, and that was the last time both organizations saw each other on the diamond.
With that being known, it’s no surprise to see that tickets to see the Rangers and Blue Jays duke it out one more time in the playoffs are trending mighty high on the secondary market. Listed below is the average ticket price and get-in price for each of the five games (the last two being if necessary, since it’s a best-of-five format), with the data being provided by TicketIQ.
Game 1 | Blue Jays at Rangers | Globe Life Park in Arlington | Avg. ticket price: $88.47 | Get-in: $17
Game 2 | Blue Jays at Rangers | Globe Life Park in Arlington | Avg. ticket price: $111.58 | Get-in: $30
Game 3 | Rangers at Blue Jays | Rogers Centre | Avg. ticket price: $302.69 | Get-in: $99
Game 4 | Rangers at Blue Jays | Rogers Centre | Avg. ticket price: $299.36 | Get-in: $95
Game 5 | Blue Jays at Rangers | Globe Life Park in Arlington | Avg. ticket price: $172.85 | Get-in: $39
As expected, Rangers vs. Blue Jays tickets at Rogers Centre north of the border are considerably steeper, as Toronto ranks high amongst the most expensive teams in baseball. Canadians love their Blue Jays, being Canada’s only team, and it continues to be evident in ticket prices. They’ll certainly be hoping the Rangers’ trip to Toronto works out how it did when they visited in early-May for a four-game series. The Blue Jays won three of the four contests, outscoring the AL’s No. 1 seed, 20-7, in the process.
The better value, though, comes in the games taking place at Globe Life Park, where fans can enter for much cheaper. It could be the ultimate value for Rangers fans, of course, as not only did Texas take two out of three from the Jays in that aforementioned regular season series in Arlington earlier in the year, they finished with the best home record in the major leagues in 2016, going 53-28 in front of the hometown fans. Plus, fans can also save money on their parking at Globe Life Stadium by visiting ParkWhiz.com, which has numerous cheap parking options all around the venue.
Toronto got to this point by defeating the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Wild Card Game on Tuesday evening. Of note, it much to do with their starting pitching and relief work, as Marcus Stroman was terrific in six innings, before the bullpen contributed five scoreless frames. Usually, it’s the offense that does the leading, and that will probably have to be the case against a fellow slugging lineup like the one in possessed in Texas. Both the Rangers (765) and Blue Jays (759) finished in the top-five in the league in runs scored this season, so expect the fireworks to continue when these two clubs renew their newfound rivalry.