Toronto Blue Jays: Five great games from the past five seasons

2. Walk off Wild Card winner – 2016 AL Wild Card

Baltimore Orioles at Blue Jays – Oct. 4, 2016 – 5-2 Blue Jays F/11

The Blue Jays’ first Wild Card game in franchise history was a thriller right until the very end.

Delete any relation you’ve drawn in your mind between the 2020 Baltimore Orioles and the Orioles teams from the mid-10s; these O’s came to play.

At this stage in time, Mark Trumbo and Chris Davis were launching everything in sight and Zach Britton was rendering the ninth inning useless for opposing teams. Unfortunately for Baltimore, only one of those two things happened during this battle of the birds.

Jose Bautista got the dome rocking with a solo shot in the second, but Trumbo crushed a two-run homer in the fourth, giving the Orioles the lead. The Jays would cobble together three hits in the fifth to score the tying run, and the two AL East foes would enter into a stalemate.

Said stalemate didn’t come without controversy, however. In the seventh, Baltimore OF Hyun-soo Kim was nearly hit with a beer can thrown from the outfield seats, as he backed up to the warning track to make a play.

The fan later turned himself in to Toronto Police and was charged with mischief. The game carried on into the eleventh, when manager Buck Showalter opted not to use Britton, and to instead go with Ubaldo Jimenez.

Showalter clearly anticipated the game to go deep into the night, and thought Jimenez could eat some innings while sparing Britton for a more high-leverage situation. He thought wrong. After Devon Travis and Josh Donaldson reached ahead of him, Edwin Encarnacion took Jimenez deep to end the Orioles’ season and grant the Jays their second ALDS appearance in as many years. Feel free to reminisce.