[Thursday’s wild-card schedule | Tigers-Guardians | Padres-Cubs | Live blog]
The 2025 MLB playoffs continue Thursday as the wild-card round concludes with three Game 3s forced by wins from the Cleveland Guardians, San Diego Padres and New York Yankees on Wednesday.
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The Los Angeles Dodgers were the only team to complete a sweep on Wednesday. The Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs joined them in the division series with wins Thursday. Here’s how it all went down.
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A low-power Padres offense went dark against a strong Cubs defense, as Chicago advanced to the NLDS, where their division rival Milwaukee Brewers await.
Jameson Taillon, Caleb Thielbar, Danny Palencia, Drew Pomeranz, Brad Keller and Andrew Kittredge combined to hold the Padres to a single run, with plenty of help from one of the best defenses in MLB. Gold Glovers Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner made some big plays in particular.
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The Cubs could have had more runs, but the damage was limited in rallies in the second and seventh inning. Still, Chicago scored all the runs they needed against a gassed Padres pitching staff. Yu Darvish lasted only one inning and left the bases loaded with no outs in the second. It’s an accomplishment that the vaunted San Diego bullpen only allowed one more run, but that’s hardly comforting.
The ending was far from comfortable for the home team, though. Keller allowed a homer to Jackson Merrill, then hit back-to-back batters to put the tying run on base. However, the bottom of the Padres order couldn’t close the gap.
The Guardians spent most of September chasing down the Tigers and beat them on the final day of the regular season for the biggest comeback in the standings in MLB history. Fate conspired to pit the two teams against each other in the wild-card series, which naturally went to a winner-take-all Game 3.
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And because this is baseball, the team that spent the past month in an embarrassing free fall got the last laugh. The Tigers advanced with a 6-3 win, setting up an ALDS matchup with the Seattle Mariners.
A competitive game turned into a rout in the seventh inning, when the Tigers batted around to take a five-run lead. Dillon Dingler provided the go-ahead run one inning earlier with a solo homer, the wind-up of a gut punch for the Progressive Field crowd.
The loss ends what had been a magical run for the Guardians until Thursday, extending their MLB-longest World Series drought to 76 years.
No. 6 Detroit Tigers 6, No. 3 Cleveland Guardians 3
No. 4 Chicago Cubs 3, No. 5 San Diego Padres 1
No. 5 Boston Red Sox vs. No. 4 New York Yankees, 8:08 p.m. ET on ESPN
MLB wild-card Game 3 live blog
Follow along with Yahoo Sports for live updates, highlights and more for the final matchups of the wild-card round: