Who should Rangers root for in Wild Card Game?

The Rangers claim they don’t have a preference as to whether it’s Baltimore or Toronto that wins the American League Wild Card game (8 p.m. ET Tuesday, TBS/Sportsnet in English or RDS in French) to secure a trip to Texas on Thursday, and they say that because of course you say that.

“We’re going to wait and see who shows up, that’s it,” Adrian Beltre said to MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan after Sunday’s regular-season finale. That’s the diplomatic answer, and probably the right one.

Yet the Orioles and Blue Jays are two extremely different teams, each with varying strengths and weaknesses that present different challenges. Baltimore has the game’s best collection of power hitters and a fantastic bullpen, but also a relatively weak starting rotation and poor outfield defense. Meanwhile, Toronto has a surprisingly decent rotation and some big names of its own in the lineup, but its bullpen struggled badly down the stretch.

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Game Date Time Matchup TV Gm 1 Oct. 6 4:30 p.m. WC @ TEX TBS Gm 2 Oct. 7 1 p.m. WC @ TEX TBS Gm 3 Oct. 9 7:30 p.m. TEX @ WC TBS *Gm 4 Oct. 10 TBD TEX @ WC TBS *Gm 5 Oct. 12 TBD WC @ TEX TBS *- If necessary | All times listed ETShop for postseason gear: Rangers • Complete Postseason coverage

No matter which team survives, the Rangers will be considered the favorite in the AL Division Series scheduled to begin on Thursday. But if they had to hope for one team … it might be Toronto. Here are three reasons why. 

Because it’s easier to keep up that one-run magic against a weaker bullpen.

This is not to say that the Blue Jays don’t have talent in their bullpen, because they do. Roberto Osuna is better than …

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