Background
This was Toronto's first appearance in the Major League Baseball wild-card game, Wild Card Game 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 American League East, AL East Division the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays season, 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 (baseball), Texas Rangers in the inaugural 2012 American League Wild Card Game, 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 in Toronto, with the winner advancing to play the first-seeded 2016 Texas Rangers season, Texas Rangers in the 2016 American League Division Series, Division Series. It was televised in the United States on Major League Baseball on TBS, TBS, while Sportsnet, a property of Blue Jays owner Rogers Communications, simulcast the TBS production in Canada. The retractable roof, 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 Baltimore Orioles. Under the 1995-2011 playoff format, the teams would have played a one-game playoff 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 (baseball), closer and 2016 Major League Baseball Reliever of the Year Award, 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 2015 American League Division Series, 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 (1960 World Series), Chris Chambliss (1976 American League Championship Series, 1976 ALCS) and Aaron Boone (2003 American League Championship Series, 2003 ALCS).References
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