Padres Beat Brewers 4-3 in NLDS Game 3 to Stay Alive
Padres beat Brewers Game 3
SAN DIEGO — On a night when their season was supposed to end, the San Diego Padres instead produced the kind of October win that gets remembered all winter. Jake Cronenworth crushed a tie-breaking home run in the fifth inning, and Game 2 starter Michael King — pressed into service as the closer because Mason Miller had gone on the paternity list 45 minutes before first pitch — recorded a six-out save to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 4-3 in Game 3 of the National League Division Series on Tuesday night at Petco Park. The Brewers still lead the best-of-five series 2-1, but they will have to try to advance on Wednesday night in front of a San Diego crowd that now believes.
How the Padres won it
The Padres struck first behind early RBIs from Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado to take a 2-0 lead. Milwaukee clawed back to tie it at 2-2 — William Contreras continued his torrid series with a solo shot in the fourth, part of a 3-for-4 night that also included a walk. Then Cronenworth, leading off the bottom of the fifth, jumped on a first-pitch sweeper from reliever JoJo Romero and sent it over the wall for a 3-2 lead. San Diego added an insurance run in the sixth in the wackiest way: Xander Bogaerts singled, advanced on a wild pitch, then came all the way around on Miguel Andujar's broken-bat grounder when Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt's throw bounced in front of first baseman Jake Bauers and caromed away. Christian Yelich snapped a 19-game postseason streak without an RBI with a seventh-inning single to cut it to 4-3 — his first playoff RBI since 2018 — but that was all Milwaukee could manage.
Michael King's gutsy gambit
The story of the night was what happened on the mound in the final two innings. Two days earlier, King had thrown 72 pitches as the Game 2 starter. With Miller suddenly unavailable and Adrian Morejon also out, manager Craig Stammen turned to King — who had told the staff days earlier he would make himself available. King retired four of his first five batters, then loaded the tying run aboard in the ninth by walking Contreras and Brice Turang with one out. Yelich then scorched a 107-mph line drive up the middle. Bogaerts, playing shortstop, went down to his knees, snared it on a short hop, touched second, and threw to first for a game-ending double play. King earned his first save since 2023, his first in the postseason, and his first for the Padres. Afterward he admitted he “wasn't as crisp” as he would have liked — but he was happy to have a Game 4.
Why this matters
The Padres beat the best team in baseball at its most vulnerable moment. Milwaukee won more games than anyone this season, and the Padres just showed the series is not a coronation. Momentum in a best-of-five is fragile: one win flips the pressure entirely onto the team that expected to celebrate.
The bullpen math changed. Miller's absence could have been the excuse for a season-ending loss. Instead, King's willingness to take the ball on one day of rest — and Stammen's willingness to ask — turned a roster emergency into a defining October moment. That kind of all-hands performance is what underdogs need to survive October, and it tells the clubhouse the manager believes anyone can be the hero.
Defense still decides October. In a series full of “web gems,” as Fox Sports put it, it was Bogaerts' glove that made the difference — a play that required perfect positioning, soft hands on a short hop, and instant awareness of the baserunner. One step wrong and the tying run scores with the winning run on base.
The Brewers' road curse is real and growing. Milwaukee has now lost 12 consecutive postseason road games, a streak dating to the 2018 NL Championship Series. They left 11 runners on base in Game 3 and never led. When the margins are this thin — a bounced throw here, a short-hop there — playing tight on the road becomes a self-fulfilling story.
What happens next
Game 4 is Wednesday night at Petco Park, and the equation is simple: the Padres win, and the series goes back to Milwaukee for a winner-take-all Game 5 on Friday. King, having emptied the tank, will almost certainly be unavailable Wednesday, so the bullpen math gets even harder — Miller's status bears watching. The Padres also shook up their lineup for Game 3, moving Jackson Merrill into the No. 2 spot for the first time since July, a signal that Stammen is willing to keep pushing buttons. The Brewers, for their part, need to find a way to win on the road in October before the streak becomes the story of their season.
The Padres were 45 minutes from losing their closer and, most assumed, their season. Instead they got one of the gutsiest wins of this postseason — and now the best team in baseball has to win a Game 4 on the road, where October has not been kind to them at all.
Sources
- Reuters — Game 3 result, scoring sequence and King's relief appearance.
- NBC Sports — Cronenworth's home run and Padres elimination-game context.
- Sportsnet — Game recap and series situation.
- Fox Sports — NLDS Game 3 roundup and defensive highlights.