Remembering the Orioles' last playoff game

It produced an abrupt and loud ending. Bat connected with ball and the contact was very loud. Moments later, the crowd would be very loud, too.

Edwin Encarnación hit one 440 feet to left center. It was a first-pitch, three-run homer off Ubaldo Jiménez and Toronto beat the Orioles 5-2 in 11 innings in the 2016 American League wild card game.

When the night began, it featured Chris Tillman (16-6, 3.77 ERA) facing Toronto right-hander Marcus Stroman (9-10, 4.37 ERA) in a matchup of 89-win teams. The Orioles and Blue Jays had tied for second, four games behind Boston for first in the AL East. The Baltimore-Toronto winner would advance to face AL top seed and 95-win Texas in the AL Division Series.

The Orioles went 9-10 versus Toronto that year. The one-game difference was the reason that game was played at Rogers Centre and not Oriole Park.

When Encarnación's blast ended it, the next few hours became a blur. My colleague, Roch Kubatko, and I wrote stories, probably until 1 or 2 a.m. Somewhere in there, we tried to get a flight home. Going into the game we had flights and hotels booked for the next morning to Dallas had the Orioles won and advanced. So we had to quickly cancel those flights and try to get back to Baltimore.

As I recall, there were no seats remaining that next day on any Air Canada flights to Baltimore, but we could get on an early-morning flight to Dulles. We took those seats and an Uber would take us to our cars at BWI.

I think we had an 8 a.m. flight, which meant leaving Toronto probably around 5:30 a.m. for the drive to the airport, about 20 to 30 minutes from downtown. So a few hours of sleep was all we would be able to get in. But now we had the entire offseason to catch up on sleep.

O's manager Buck Showalter got heavy criticism then - and still does to this day - for not pitching Zack Britton in that game. He had an 0.54 ERA during the season. He should have pitched somewhere in the late innings. But Showalter had a 10-man staff for that game and also didn't use Dylan Bundy or Tommy Hunter.

After lefty Brian Duensing got the first out of the Toronto 11th, Showalter called for Jiménez. He had a strong second half with a 2.82 ERA, but had not pitched in relief much through his career. He gave up a single, a single and a three-run homer in a span of five pitches. The 2016 season was over for the Orioles.

The pitching decisions are most remembered about that game. But the Orioles led the majors in homers that year and ranked third in the AL in team OPS.

But they were held to just four hits in the wild card game. One was Mark Trumbo's two-run homer to left in the fourth that gave the Orioles a brief 2-1 lead. But Toronto tied it in the fifth and the score stayed that way until the swing that ended it. The Orioles had no hits in their last 16 at-bats that night.

Before someone thanks me for bringing up a bad memory, keep in mind there are good memories here, too. A playoff team, 89 wins, the excitement of a one-game playoff. The excitement leading up to that game. The Orioles were making their third playoff appearance in five seasons.

I'll remember how Rogers Centre rocked all night. Also the crush of media in that small O's clubhouse after the game. Jiménez, to his credit, stood there for wave after wave of reporters. Other vets like Matt Wieters and Adam Jones praised the team for a strong season even if it had a rough ending.

I'll remember how strange it felt to not know whether I was headed west to Texas or south to Baltimore in the morning. When a season ends like that, it is like a roller coaster that quickly comes to a stop. Time to get off the fun ride that was the 2016 season.

The latest: The Major League Baseball Players Association made a counter-proposal to the owners Sunday in an effort to get the 2020 season started. It included a proposed 114-game regular season running through October and some salary deferrals if the postseason is wiped out by a second wave of the virus. For more click here.