In May, I distilled the more than 60,000 major-league games that had been played in the 21st century down to the best 25. As you’d expect, everyone in the comments section agreed I got it 100 percent, absolutely correct.

Since then, more baseball has been played, including a phenomenal 2025 postseason capped by one of the great World Series of all time. And my list has become … shudders … out of date.

So, on the heels of Saturday’s Game 7 in Toronto and a month that saw seven winner-take-all games played, let’s update the best 25 games of the 21st century with three new entrants.

Meet the new classics

Mariners teammates mob Jorge Polanco after his RBI single ended a 15-inning thriller against the Detroit Tigers in Game 5 of the ALCS. (Steph Chambers / Getty Images)

14. 2025 ALDS Game 5: Mariners 3, Tigers 2 (15 innings)

Remember when this was the marathon game from this postseason that you’d never forget? Before the World Series, Detroit and Seattle established just how wild extra innings could be in the longest winner-take-all game in postseason history.

Regulation had included a dominant performance from Tarik Skubal, another game-changing home run from Kerry Carpenter, and Leo Rivas’ game-tying single off the bench in the seventh inning.

In extras, each team started rallies that it couldn’t finish. The leadoff man reached in five half-innings between the 10th and 13th. It wasn’t until the 15th when J.P. Crawford’s leadoff single was paid off by Jorge Polanco’s walk-off base hit to right to give Seattle its first trip to the ALCS in 24 years.

This slips in front of another classic ALDS Game 5 on the list.

8. 2025 World Series Game 3: Dodgers 6, Blue Jays 5 (18 innings)

Long games are hard to rank. You’ll notice that this list does not include this game’s spiritual predecessor in the 2018 World Series, nor does it contain other 18-inning playoff games won by the Giants and Astros.

This game is better than those other ones because of the leverage on the individual contest (it’s the World Series, and it was Game 3 of a 1-1 series), an individual offensive performance that will be hard to ever match, and the back-and-forth action throughout the six hours and 39 minutes it took to play. It doesn’t hurt that, with the implementation of the bonus runner in regular-season extra innings, 18-inning games feel weirder now than before.

To wit, this was already a very good game through nine innings. You had each team blow a two-run lead, and you had Toronto sneak ahead in the seventh only for Shohei Ohtani to tie it with another homer in the bottom of the inning. And then in extras, you had inning after inning of near-misses: Davis Schneider thrown out at home in the 10th, Clayton Kershaw coming in to get Nathan Lukes to end the 12th, and the Dodgers stranding multiple runners in the 10th, 11th, 13th, 14th and 17th. A potential Hall of Famer, Freddie Freeman, ended it with the second World Series walk-off home run of his career.

Ohtani reached base nine times. Will Klein, a guy dedicated baseball fans had never heard of when the game began, was the pitching hero for Los Angeles. It felt like it had everything. This series wasn’t done.

This is one of only two games on the list to take place this early in a seven-game series.

1. 2025 World Series Game 7: Dodgers 5, Blue Jays 4 (11 innings)

When I did this in May, with 2001’s Game 7 at the top of the list, I wrote, “I don’t know how you top this.” That game had so much star power, so much inning-to-inning drama and such an indelible finish that it was hard to fathom a better game.

Five months later, we saw it.

You start again with the star power. You had Shohei Ohtani and Max Scherzer starting — two guys who will go into the Hall of Fame. You had seven of the eight starters in the Series pitching at one point or another, including Yoshinobu Yamamoto one-upping Randy Johnson’s 2001 heroics. You had MVP-caliber hitters in Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer in all-time gut-it-out performances.

And then, in the final four innings, you had enormous swings of momentum:

Max Muncy’s homer to halve the Toronto lead
The Jays stranding Ernie Clement’s insurance run after a leadoff double
Miguel Rojas channeling Rajai Davis with the unbelievable score-tying homer (an inning later)
Back-to-back, hold-your-breath, game-saving defensive plays by Rojas and Andy Pages in the bottom of the ninth
Seranthony Domínguez wiggling his own way out of the same bases-loaded, one-out jam in the 10th
Will Smith’s go-ahead home run
Guerrero’s leadoff double and Alejandro Kirk’s heartbreaking double play

In the bottom of the 11th, either team could have won the World Series on the next swing. Two of the top-five and three of the top-12 most consequential plays in the sport’s history happened in this game; the rest of these games combined for three plays in the top 20.

Maybe this is recency bias. I don’t think it is.

The updated and revised best games of the 2000s

(For a refresh and full explanations of all the games, here’s the original list.)

25. 2024 Game 161: Mets 8, Braves 7
24. 2011 Game 162: Rays 8, Yankees 7 (10 innings)
23. 2013 ALCS Game 2: Red Sox 6, Tigers 5
22. 2004 NLCS Game 5: Astros 3, Cardinals 0
21. 2019 NLDS Game 5: Nationals 7, Dodgers 3 (10 innings)
20. 2005 NLDS Game 4: Astros 7, Braves 6 (18 innings)
19. 2015 NLDS Game 5: Mets 3, Dodgers 2
18. 2001 World Series Game 5: Yankees 3, Diamondbacks 2 (12 innings)
17. 2014 World Series Game 7: Giants 3, Royals 2
16. 2020 World Series Game 4: Rays 8, Dodgers 7
15. 2015 ALDS Game 5: Blue Jays 6, Rangers 3
14. 2025 ALDS Game 5: Mariners 3, Tigers 2 (15 innings)
13. 2024 World Series Game 1: Dodgers 6, Yankees 3 (10 innings)
12. 2021 NLDS Game 5: Dodgers 2, Giants 1
11. 2002 World Series Game 6: Angels 7, Giants 6
10. 2004 ALCS Game 4: Red Sox 6, Yankees 4 (12 innings)
9. 2011 NLDS Game 5: Cardinals 1, Phillies 0
8. 2025 World Series Game 3: Dodgers 6, Blue Jays 5 (18 innings)
7. 2014 AL Wild Card Game: Royals 9, Athletics 8 (12 innings)
6. 2003 ALCS Game 7: Yankees 6, Red Sox 5 (11 innings)
5. 2017 World Series Game 5: Astros 13, Dodgers 12 (10 innings)
4. 2011 World Series Game 6: Cardinals 10, Rangers 9 (11 innings)
3. 2016 World Series Game 7: Cubs 8, Indians 7 (10 innings)
2. 2001 World Series Game 7: Diamondbacks 3, Yankees 2
1. 2025 World Series Game 7: Dodgers 5, Blue Jays 4 (11 innings)

Bumped off the list

2010 NLDS Game 1: Phillies 4, Reds 0
2019 World Series Game 7: Nationals 6, Astros 2
2021 Field of Dreams Game: White Sox 9, Yankees 8