The one-game Wild Card playoff adds lots of excitement for baseball fans. The games have sometimes been truly wild affairs, and because teams are able to set their rosters for just one game there isn’t any reason to keep beyond the one piece of the rotation needed to start that day.
The Wild Card play-in game has been in place since 2012. In 2014 the Royals edged the A’s 9-8 in 12 innings, then went on to win the American League pennant, losing the World Series to the Giants. In 2016 Toronto walked off the Orioles on an eleventh inning three-run homer by Edwin Encarnacion for a 5-2 victory.