http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/05/sports/baseball/toronto-blue-jays-baltimore-orioles-al-wild-card.html 2016-10-05 07:06:57 Blue Jays Top Orioles in 11 Innings in A.L. Wild-Card Game In a battle of home-run-hitting teams, Edwin Encarnacion’s three-run shot sent Toronto to the divisional round, where it will face the Texas Rangers. === TORONTO — The ball left the bat with a thunderclap, one that reverberated all through a nation. Edwin Encarnacion won the American League wild-card game for the Encarnacion unloaded on a first-pitch fastball from Ubaldo Jimenez, crushing a three-run homer in the second deck at a raucous Rogers Centre to beat the For Toronto, the victory set up a rematch of last fall’s tense division series with the Texas Rangers. For Baltimore, the loss begins a winter of wondering what might have been. The Orioles have the best reliever in baseball, Zach Britton, who was 47 for 47 in save opportunities, with a 0.54 E.R.A. But Britton is the closer, and closers generally pitch only with a lead in road games. With their season on the line, the Orioles went down without using him. They used six other relievers, including Jimenez, the erratic starter who had been on a hot streak. But as soon as Jimenez entered, with one out and the bases empty in the 11th, the Blue Jays took advantage. Devon Travis — who had grounded into two double plays — singled. Josh Donaldson did the same. Orioles Manager Buck Showalter met at the mound with Jimenez and the infielders, who drew in as he faced Encarnacion. Their positioning immediately became a nonissue. The next person to touch the ball would be in the stands. Through three innings, neither pitcher worked from the stretch. Marcus Stroman retired the first nine Orioles, and Chris Tillman set down nine of his 10 hitters. The exception was a loud one: a homer by Jose Bautista, off an inside fastball in the second inning. Bautista, of course, had homered in the last winner-take-all game here, in the division series with Texas last fall. He punctuated that blast with a bat flip that infuriated the Rangers, but dropped the bat at home this time. The crowd went wild, anyway. The Orioles got their first hit in the fourth on a single by Adam Jones. With a full count on the next hitter, Hyun Soo Kim, Jones took off for second — a rare display of the Orioles’ running game that paid off immediately when Kim rolled a grounder to first. Encarnacion fielded it and looked to second, but had no play there. He settled for one out, keeping Jones on base when Mark Trumbo came up with two outs. One pitch after a diving catch by the fleet center fielder Kevin Pillar, Trumbo lined a first-pitch fastball toward the left-field foul pole. As the major league leader in homers, with 47, Trumbo is used to hitting balls a bit farther. But this one counted the same, just high enough to clear the wall for a two-run homer that gave the Orioles a 2-1 lead. It came in Trumbo’s 850th career game, and his first in the postseason. The Orioles are dangerous with a lead because their bullpen had the best earned run average in the A.L., at 3.40. But before Tillman could turn over the lead, he lost it. The Blue Jays smacked two one-out doubles in the fifth but did not score; Michael Bourn nearly caught the second double, so Michael Saunders had to hold at third. The No. 9 hitter, Ezequiel Carrera, drove him in with a single to center that ended Tillman’s night. His replacement, Mychal Givens, flummoxed the Blue Jays, escaping the fifth with a double play and striking out Donaldson and Bautista in a 1-2-3 sixth. Toronto then turned to its bullpen, lifting Stroman after six innings for the left-hander Brett Cecil. Each team carried nine relievers on its wild-card roster for a reason — a bullpen game, officially, was on. Blue Jays Manager John Gibbons matched up with two relievers in the top of the seventh, and Showalter did the same in the bottom. That inning ended with a scary moment, when Kim retreated for a fly ball in left and was nearly hit by a drink flung from the stands above him. Jones gestured and screamed at the fans, and Showalter was also livid, hustling to the outfield to confer with the umpires. Nothing came of it, though, and Jason Grilli retired Jones and Kim in a 1-2-3 eighth. The relievers traded punches from there — a scoreless eighth for Brad Brach, then a scoreless ninth for Roberto Osuna, the 21-year-old who lost the A.L. Championship Series clincher in Kansas City last fall. Manny Machado led off and squibbed the first pitch back to Osuna for an easy groundout. Then Trumbo struck out, and Osuna fell behind Matt Wieters, 3-0. Wieters swung for the moon on the next pitch, missing a fastball, and then took strike two. Osuna fired a slider, and it jackknifed under Wieters’s bat for the third strike. But there would be more work to do, and Osuna could not finish it. He left with a trainer after the first out of the 10th, turning things over to Francisco Liriano. Liriano, who won the wild-card game for Pittsburgh in 2013, faced five hitters and retired them all. The Orioles’ relievers had similar success: Darren O’Day faced four hitters and got five outs. Then Brian Duensing retired the only batter he faced. Then it was time for Jimenez, and still not Britton. Soon the Blue Jays were celebrating, and the Orioles were heading home.