The 2016 American League Wild Card Game was a

play-in game A play-in game ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

's (MLB) 2016 postseason played between the

American League The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is the younger of two sports leagues, leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western L ...

's (AL) two wild card teams, the

Toronto Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. Since 1989, the team has p ...

and the

Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles (also known as the O's) are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East Division. As one of the America ...

. As both teams finished with identical 89–73 records, a

tiebreaker In games and sport, a tiebreaker or tiebreak is any method used to determine a winner or to rank participants when there is a tie - meaning two or more parties have achieved a same score or result. A tiebreaker provides the additional criterion ...

was used to determine the host team. In accordance with MLB tiebreaking rules, the Blue Jays earned the right to host the game by winning their season series against the Orioles 10–9. The Blue Jays beat the Orioles, 5–2, in

extra innings Extra innings is the extension of a baseball or softball game in order to break a tie. Ordinarily, a baseball game consists of nine regulation innings (in softball and high school baseball games there are typically seven innings; in Little Lea ...

. This was the Orioles' last postseason appearance until 2023.

Background

This was Toronto's first appearance in the

Wild Card Game The Wild Card Series (formerly known as Wild Card Game from 2012 to 2019 and in 2021) are games that serve as the opening round of the Major League Baseball (MLB) postseason. A single wild card game was instituted in 2012. This became a best ...

and their first overall appearance as a wild card (when it was first introduced in 1995), and their second consecutive postseason appearance after winning the AL East Division the previous season. It was the second appearance in a Wild Card Game both for Baltimore and its manager Buck Showalter. Showalter's Orioles defeated the Texas Rangers in the inaugural AL Wild Card Game in 2012. This was the first postseason meeting between the two teams. The game was played at 8:00 pm EDT on October 4, 2016 at

Rogers Centre Rogers Centre (originally SkyDome) is a retractable roof stadium in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated at the base of the CN Tower near the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Opened in 1989 on the former Railway Lands, it is home to t ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, with the winner advancing to play the first-seeded Texas Rangers in the

Division Series The Division Series is the quarterfinal round of the Major League Baseball postseason. Four series are played in this round, two each for both the American League and the National League. 1981 season The first use of the term "Division Series ...

. It was televised in the United States on TBS, while

Sportsnet Sportsnet is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language Discretionary service, discretionary sports broadcasting, sports specialty channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media. It was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture betw ...

, a property of Blue Jays owner

Rogers Communications Rogers Communications Inc. is a Canadian communications and media company operating primarily in the fields of wireless communications, cable television, telephony and Internet, with significant additional telecommunications and mass media ass ...

, simulcast the TBS production in Canada. The retractable dome at Rogers Centre was open for the game, the first time this was done for a postseason contest at the venue. This was the second Wild Card Game played between teams with identical regular season records, and the second time for the

. Under the 1995-2011 playoff format, the teams would have played a

one-game playoff A one-game playoff, sometimes known as a pennant playoff, tiebreaker game or knockout game, is a tiebreaker in certain sports—usually but not always professional—to determine which of two teams, tied in the final standings, will qualify for a ...

to determine the Wild Card team.

Game results

Line score

Toronto and Baltimore turned to their Opening Day starters, as Marcus Stroman and Chris Tillman took the mound for their respective teams. The Blue Jays scored first with a home run by José Bautista leading off the second inning. The Orioles responded two innings later with a go-ahead two-run homer from Mark Trumbo. The Blue Jays recorded three hits in the fifth on their way to scoring the tying run. The Toronto Blue Jays won the game 5–2 in the 11th inning when Edwin Encarnación hit a walk-off three-run homer off Ubaldo Jiménez. Zach Britton, the Orioles' closer and 2016 American League Reliever of the Year, controversially did not appear in the game. The Blue Jays advanced to the American League Division Series to face the Rangers for the second consecutive time in the postseason; their first meeting was in the previous year's American League Division Series. Encarnación became only the fourth player to end a winner-take-all postseason game (that is, a game in which one team or the other was sure to be eliminated) with a walk-off home run, joining

Bill Mazeroski William Stanley Mazeroski (born September 5, 1936), nicknamed "Maz" and "the Glove", is an American former second baseman in Major League Baseball (MLB) who played his entire career for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1956 to 1972. A seven-time All- ...

(

1960 World Series The 1960 World Series was the World Series, championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1960 Major League Baseball season, 1960 season. The 57th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff that matched the National Leag ...

), Chris Chambliss ( 1976 ALCS) and

Aaron Boone Aaron John Boone (born March 9, 1973) is an American professional baseball manager and former infielder who is the manager of the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB). He previously played in MLB for 13 seasons from 1997 to 2009. As ...

( 2003 ALCS).

References

External links

2016 Major League Baseball season scheduleSchedule for 2016 Postseason
{{Portal bar, Baseball, Canada American League Wild Card Game 2016 American League Wild Card Game Baltimore Orioles postseason Toronto Blue Jays postseason 2016 in Toronto American League Wild Card Game Baseball competitions in Toronto