Padres Stave Off Elimination: Cronenworth’s Homer and King’s Six-Out Save Edge Brewers 4-3 in NLDS Game 3

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Padres refused to go home. Facing elimination after dropping the first two games of the National League Division Series, the Padres rode a tie-breaking fifth-inning home run from Jake Cronenworth, a chaotic sixth-inning insurance run and an improbable six-out save from a starting pitcher working on two days’ rest to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 4-3 on Tuesday night at Petco Park, forcing a Game 4.

The Brewers still lead the best-of-five series 2-1. But the Padres, who came into the night one loss from the end of their season, kept themselves alive in front of a raucous home crowd. Game 4 is set for Wednesday night back at Petco Park, with the Brewers one win from a second straight trip to the National League Championship Series and the Padres still refusing to blink, according to the Associated Press.

The scoreline tells only half the story. This series has now produced three consecutive one-run games — the first time a postseason series has opened with three straight one-run decisions since the 2021 National League Championship Series, the Associated Press reported. Milwaukee took Games 1 and 2 at American Family Field, including a walk-off in Game 2 that was only the third postseason walk-off in Brewers franchise history. San Diego came home with its back to the wall and played like it.

The Padres struck first, building a 2-0 lead in the third inning with Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado driving in the early runs, the Associated Press reported. Cronenworth finished 2-for-2 on the night, according to USA Today, and his biggest swing of the season arrived one inning after Milwaukee had clawed back to level terms.

Brewers catcher William Contreras, who went 3-for-4 with a walk and a homer on the night, cut the lead to 2-1 with a solo shot in the top of the fourth, Reuters reported. Milwaukee then tied it 2-2 on a fifth-inning sacrifice fly, and for a moment the game had the feel of Games 1 and 2 — the Brewers bending, then breaking, San Diego’s resolve.

Cronenworth answered immediately. Leading off the bottom of the fifth, he jumped on a first-pitch sweeper from JoJo Romero and sent it 368 feet over the right-field wall to restore San Diego’s 3-2 lead, Reuters reported. It was the decisive swing, though the Padres still needed help to make it stand up.

That help arrived in bizarre fashion in the sixth. Xander Bogaerts singled with two outs against right-hander Antonio Senzatela. Left-hander DL Hall entered and uncorked a wild pitch that moved Bogaerts to second. Pinch hitter Miguel Andujar then shattered his bat on a grounder to shortstop. The broken lumber nearly caught the leaping Bogaerts, who had to dodge both bat and ball, while Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt’s throw to first bounced in front of first baseman Jake Bauers and caromed away, Reuters reported. Bogaerts kept running all the way and scored what turned out to be the winning run — a 4-2 lead born of pure October chaos.

Milwaukee made it a one-run game again in the seventh. Christian Yelich delivered a two-out RBI single, according to the New York Post — the hit that finally ended one of the most discussed droughts of this postseason. Yelich had gone 19 straight postseason games without driving in a run, and this was his first playoff RBI since 2018, Reuters reported. It trimmed the Padres’ lead to 4-3 and guaranteed that every remaining pitch would carry the full weight of San Diego’s season.

Then came the ninth, and the moment that will live in this series’ memory. With San Diego’s season hanging on six outs, Padres manager Craig Stammen turned to the most unlikely closer imaginable: Michael King, the Game 2 starter, working just two days after throwing 72 pitches in his start, according to Reuters.

King had become the emergency option because San Diego’s star closer, Mason Miller, had been placed on the postseason paternity list roughly 45 minutes before first pitch, according to the Associated Press. The commissioner’s office approves such roster moves during the playoffs to prevent roster manipulation, and pitcher Wandy Peralta took Miller’s place on the roster, the Associated Press reported. Walker Buehler had just returned from the paternity list himself, and Miller — who had thrown a season-high 40 pitches on Sunday — can remain away for anywhere from one to three days.

King retired four of his first five batters, then ran into real trouble. Contreras and Brice Turang drew one-out walks in the ninth, and Yelich — the man who had finally broken his RBI drought — stepped in with the tying run aboard. He cracked a line drive up the middle. Bogaerts, at shortstop, went down to his knees to field it on a short hop, touched second himself and threw to first to complete the game-ending double play, Reuters reported.

It was King’s first save since 2023, when he was with the Yankees, his first save in the postseason and his first as a Padre, the Associated Press reported. The 29-year-old right-hander gave up one hit and walked two across his six outs, and his postgame remarks — that he had made himself available and was simply happy for a Game 4 — understated what he had just done. Reliever Yuki Matsui was credited with the win after retiring three batters across the fifth and sixth innings, Reuters reported.

For Milwaukee, the night carried a familiar ache. The Brewers lost their 12th consecutive postseason road game, a streak dating back to the 2018 National League Championship Series, the Associated Press reported. They left 11 runners on base and fell behind early in all three games of this series, never holding a lead in Game 3 despite Contreras’s excellent night. Romero took the loss for Milwaukee after surrendering Cronenworth’s homer.

The rest of the National League bracket kept pace with the drama. In Atlanta, Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out a postseason-career-high 10 batters across seven innings of one-run, four-hit ball as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Braves 3-1 to take a 2-1 series lead, Reuters reported. It was Yamamoto’s first postseason start since he was named the 2025 World Series MVP.

The Dodgers broke the game open in the fourth, when Enrique Hernández followed Andy Pages’ leadoff single with a 406-foot two-run homer off Braves ace Chris Sale — the 17th home run of Hernández’s postseason career. One out later, Freddie Freeman added a solo shot in his first postseason game back in Atlanta, where he played his first 12 seasons and won the 2021 World Series, Reuters reported. It was Freeman’s 18th career postseason homer, tying him for 10th in major-league history. Sale ground through five innings, allowing three runs on seven hits with seven strikeouts, and the Braves had loaded the bases with one out in the fifth before Yamamoto escaped with just one run allowed on a Drake Baldwin groundout, Reuters reported. Tanner Scott handled a scoreless eighth and Edwin Diaz, despite a leadoff double from Ozzie Albies in the ninth, closed it out for the save.

The Dodgers can now advance to the NL Championship Series with a win on Wednesday night, and they are chasing history: no National League team has ever won three consecutive World Series, Reuters reported. If Los Angeles closes out Atlanta and Milwaukee eventually gets past San Diego, the Brewers would meet the Dodgers in the NLCS for the second year running.

Over in the American League, Wednesday brings the Division Series Game 3s, with the Chicago White Sox and Tampa Bay Rays each holding 2-0 leads and the Cleveland Guardians and New York Yankees on the brink of elimination, Fox Sports reported.

Why It Matters

The defining story of this game is not really Cronenworth’s home run — it is Craig Stammen’s ninth inning. Calling on a starter two days after a 72-pitch outing to record a six-out save in an elimination game is the kind of desperation that usually ends a season, not extends one. It worked, and that single decision reshapes the rest of this series. San Diego has now discovered an emergency weapon it did not know it had, while Milwaukee’s hitters have fresh evidence that the Padres will throw absolutely anything at them to survive. The paternity-list wrinkle that forced the move — Miller’s absence, Peralta’s insertion, Buehler’s return — is a reminder of how thin October margins are: one family event nearly cost San Diego its closer, and instead it may have found its defining moment.

Consider the series through the lens of inches. Three straight one-run games, the first such opening to a series in five years. A broken bat in the sixth inning produced the winning run. A short-hop stab on a knee-high line drive in the ninth produced the final out. Neither team’s plans have survived contact with the other; the scoreboards have survived on effort and luck in almost equal measure. That is good news for San Diego, because it means Milwaukee has no structural advantage to fall back on — no game has been decided by talent disparity. The Brewers simply have to win one of the next two, but nothing about this series suggests the next two will be easier than the first three.

Milwaukee’s problem is more specific and more worrying. Twelve straight postseason road losses, stretching back eight years, is not a coincidence anymore — it is a pattern that now lives in the heads of the players who have to break it. Game 3 was winnable: Contreras went 3-for-4, the Brewers left 11 runners on base, and they had the tying run aboard in the ninth. A team that keeps creating chances and keeps wasting them is a team one bad bounce away from a crisis of belief. Yelich embodies it perfectly. He finally ended a postseason RBI drought that stretched back to 2018 with the seventh-inning hit that made it 4-3 — and then he hit the line drive that ended the game, literally into two outs. Milwaukee’s night, in one player.

For the National League as a whole, the bracket is setting up beautifully. The Dodgers are one win from the NLCS and a genuine shot at a three-peat — something no NL club has ever done. Whoever survives Padres-Brewers will arrive battle-tested through what has been the most consistently dramatic series of the Division Series round. And the Padres, having stared at elimination and flinched not at all, get another October night at Petco Park, where this team has now shown it plays its best baseball when its season is on the line.

Three things to watch: Game 4 on Wednesday night at Petco Park — 10 p.m. Eastern on FS1, per USA Today — where the Padres are reportedly weighing Robbie Ray or the just-returned Walker Buehler and the Brewers have yet to name a starter, according to the New York Post; whether Mason Miller returns from the paternity list in time to re-stabilise San Diego’s bullpen; and whether Milwaukee’s bats finally convert their chances instead of stranding them, because another 11-runner night on the road will almost certainly end the Brewers’ season in a place they cannot stand losing.

Sources

• Reuters: Padres come up with clutch efforts, beat Brewers to force Game 4
• The Associated Press (via theScore): King gets 6-out save, Padres stay alive with Game 3 win
• New York Post: Padres refuse to die as unlikely heroes save season against Brewers
• Fox Sports: MLB Division Series Roundup — Padres stay alive, Dodgers put Braves on brink