2025 MLB ALDS and NLDS Game 1 Winners and Losers

The Division Series round of the 2025 Major League Baseball postseason began with a game that was over by the second inning, but ended late in the night with one that needed a few extras.

The No. 1 seeds held serve, and convincingly so. The Brewers beat the Cubs by six before the Blue Jays stomped the Yankees by nine.

But the No. 2 seeds both blew early leads, leaving Philadelphia and Seattle facing significant uphill climbs to put together that World Series matchup that so many of us were predicting.

To recap the day, we've got winners and losers from each of the eight teams in action.

ALDS/NLDS Game 1 Results

NLDS: No. 4 Chicago Cubs vs. No. 1 Milwaukee Brewers

• Saturday Result: Milwaukee 9, Chicago 3
• Series Status: Brewers lead 1-0

ALDS: No. 4 New York Yankees vs. No. 1 Toronto Blue Jays

• Saturday Result: Toronto 10, New York 1
• Series Status: Blue Jays lead 1-0

NLDS: No. 3 Los Angeles Dodgers vs. No. 2 Philadelphia Phillies

• Saturday Result: Los Angeles 5, Philadelphia 3
• Series Status: Dodgers lead 1-0

ALDS: No. 6 Detroit Tigers vs. No. 2 Seattle Mariners

• Saturday Result: Detroit 3, Seattle 2 (11 innings)
• Series Status: Tigers lead 1-0

Milwaukee Brewers Winners and Losers

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Freddy Peralta

Winner: Freddy Peralta

In a world where Paul Skenes doesn't exist, Freddy Peralta may well be your 2025 NL Cy Young winner. He won 17 games with a 2.70 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and 10.4 K/9. He's probably the best pitcher in baseball who typically gets left out of those conversations.

After Saturday's gem, though, he might finally start getting mentioned with the likes of Skenes and Tarik Skubal.

Making the seventh postseason appearance of his career, Peralta's day was dominance that was book-ended by solo homers. Michael Busch went yard right away, but Peralta locked in from there with nine strikeouts, a couple of walks and just one single allowed until Ian Happ's solo shot with two outs in the sixth.

Milwuakee hadn't played since Sunday and they have a day off before Game 2, so a bullpen game wouldn't have been the end of the world for Milwaukee. But Peralta decided to demoralize the Cubs instead.

Loser: Jackson Chourio's Hamstring

During Milwaukee's early onslaught, Jackson Chourio made postseason history. With a leadoff double, a two-run single later in the first and an RBI infield single in the second inning, he became the first player to record three hits within the first two innings of a postseason game, per the TNT broadcast.

Unfortunately, in legging out that third hit, Chourio experienced some tightness in his right hamstring and was pulled from the game.

It's the same hamstring he injured on a triple against the Cubs back in late July. That time, it cost him a full month of action, followed by a September in which he had a .599 OPS—compared to .786 at the time of the injury.

This one didn't appear to be as bad. At any rate, he didn't immediately grab for the back of his leg, and Brewers manager Pat Murphy seemed to indicate in his mid-game TV interview that it was an "abundance of caution" sort of decision. Maybe he'll be back for Game 2 if the post-game imaging comes back clean.

It did feel like a potential turning point for the series, though. It was nothing but good vibes up until then, but from that moment forward, the Brewers didn't score again.

Chicago Cubs Winners and Losers

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Winner: Aaron Civale, Bulk Reliever

Craig Counsell's decision to go with Matt Boyd on three days' rest was curious from the outset.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and losing Cade Horton in late September made the Cubs pretty desperate. But why is Colin Rea even on the roster if not to start their fourth game of the postseason? He went at least 5.1 innings in each of his final four appearances of the regular season, ending the year with a sub-4.00 ERA. He could've started Game 1 and they would've had their ace on full rest for Game 2, as well as on four days' rest for Game 5, if necessary.

But I digress. The result was disastrous. Boyd lasted just eight batters, allowing six runs (two earned) as things quickly spiraled out of control.

At least Aaron Civale put in some serious work to save the bullpen from getting too depleted right off the bat. A Brewer to open the season before requesting a trade when they moved him from the rotation to the bullpen, Civale went 4.1 scoreless innings against his former employer.

Loser: Immediate Deflation

For all of five minutes, Michael Busch's leadoff home run had Brewers fans feeling that all too familiar "Here we go again" sense of dread.

At 2-10 overall during their five postseason eliminations over the past six years, it's practically tradition at this point that the Brewers play really well for six months before giving way to the actual World Series contenders.

However, as Chourio, Brice Turang and William Contreras responded with back-to-back-to-back doubles to lead off the game, it was Chicago's turn to fall back into those heartbreaking woes of yesteryear.

Milwaukee batted around in the first inning, as well as in the second inning, Game 1 of this series effectively coming to an end before it even had a chance to get interesting.

New York Yankees Winners and Losers

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Winner: Camilo Doval

Amid their flurry of trade deadline wheelings and dealings, the Yankees gave up four prospects to acquire Camilo Doval from the Giants. As evidenced by the fact that he pitched the 9th inning in a save situation in his Yankees debut, they intended for him to become their closer.

He blew that save, though. And over the course of his first 16 appearances, he had a 6.59 ERA and had been completely removed from high-leverage (or even medium-leverage) situations.

He reeled it back in over the final two weeks, though, and was called upon in the fifth inning on Saturday to keep New York's 2-0 deficit from getting out of hand. He retired all six batters he faced, tossing two perfect innings for just the second time in his career—the other also coming in October, when he mowed down the Dodgers in that massive 2021 NLDS.

Doval would have been in line for the win if...

Well...

Loser: Blown Chance in the 6th Inning

Bases loaded.

Nobody out.

Aaron Judge at the plate.

If you're a Yankees fan, that's the ultimate dream scenario. And in 18 career chances in that exact situation, All Rise was 6-for-15 with two grand slams and a 1.322 OPS.

Better yet, Judge was facing a suddenly laboring Kevin Gausman, his most familiar foe of all big league pitchers, against whom he entered the day 17-for-48 with six home runs and a 1.283 OPS.

Again, ultimate dream scenario.

Until it wasn't. Judge whiffed on a 3-2 splitter that ended up nowhere close to the plate. And though Cody Bellinger followed with a four-pitch walk to bring in a run, Ben Rice popped out before Giancarlo Stanton struck out.

Three former MVPs came to the dish and a 2-0 deficit turned into...a 2-1 deficit. And New York never recovered from blowing that golden opportunity.

I'm not sure exactly how many runs the Yankees ought to have scored in that situation. I do know, however, that their win probability went from 19.2 percent at the start of the sixth to 44.7 percent after Trent Grisham drew the walk that loaded the bases.

Multiple runs seemed inevitable. But when they failed to get multiple runs, the game result instantly felt a different sort of inevitable.

Toronto Blue Jays Winners and Winners

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Winner: Alejandro Kirk

Other Winner: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Other Other Winner: Erasing Nine Years of Misery

Nope, that's not a typo in the header. There shall be no losers chosen from the Blue Jays' side of that cathartic shellacking.

The biggest individual winner of the bunch is Alejandro Kirk, who has been on some sort of heater at the dish lately.

In Toronto's second-to-last game of the regular season, Kirk blasted a solo home run. He proceeded to hit a grand slam, double and another home run in the regular season finale, powering the Blue Jays to an AL East-clinching victory. Five days off did nothing to slow him down, homering in his first AB on Saturday before adding another in the eighth inning.

All told, five home runs and nine RBI in the span of 10 trips to the plate. Those are slow-pitch softball numbers, and Toronto is basically untouchable if he keeps that up.

Of course, Kirk's homer came after the $500M man finally hit one of his own in the first inning.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had previously been sort of the face of Toronto's postseason failures, going 3-for-22 with just one run and one RBI in the Blue Jays' six consecutive postseason losses over the past half-decade. But he had three hits in this game alone, plus a sacrifice fly. He also snared the Ryan McMahon liner that resulted in the only double play of the game.

But the biggest win of all was the win itself.

Toronto's inability to win in the postseason wasn't exactly approaching "Minnesota Twins losing 18 consecutive games over the course of 19 years" levels of misery, but there was definitely a growing stigma after getting swept out of the wild card round in each of 2020, 2022 and 2023—the latter directly putting an end to that Twins drought.

They desperately needed this win, and not just because they would've been facing one heck of an uphill battle with Max Fried, Carlos Rodón and wild card wunderkind Cam Schlittler lined up to start for New York in these next three games.

They needed this win to believe they could do it. Doing it as emphatically as they did just might be the springboard needed to go out and win 10 more.

Los Angeles Dodgers Winners and Losers

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Winner: Redemption for Teo

It's typically in the seventh inning that we start evaluating the options for each team's biggest winner and loser. And when Teoscar Hernández stepped to the plate down by one with two on and two out in the top of the seventh inning, it was really just a question of whether he would be the clear choice for LA's winner or loser.

To that point in the game, he was 0-for-3 with three strikeouts. Not only three strikeouts, but three swinging strikeouts on changeups below the strike zone, on which Cristopher Sánchez made him look completely helpless.

Furthermore, Hernández's effort on J.T. Realmuto's two-run triple in the second inning? Yikes. If he takes a better angle on that ball, it's merely an RBI single, and the Phillies end up with two runs, maybe even just one run in that frame instead of a three-spot.

So, if he had whiffed for a fourth time in that critical spot, he's the pick for biggest loser, no questions asked.

Instead, he got a fastball up in the zone and lifted it into the seats in right-center for a three-run home run; a series-changing moment in the Division Series that pretty much everyone seems to agree will determine who ultimately wins the World Series.

Add in his work in the wild card sweep of Cincinnati and he's up to three home runs and nine RBI already in this postseason.

Loser: The Hitting Portion of the Unicorn

For the most part, Shohei Ohtani was brilliant on the mound on Saturday, building on a September in which he logged 14.2 scoreless innings.

There was a brief rough patch in the second inning, punctuated by the aforementioned Hernández-aided triple. But take out that walk-single-triple sequence, and Ohtani allowed one single and one HBP while striking out nine in six innings of work.

It was exactly the type of performance Los Angeles had been dreaming of for months, gradually stretching him out just a little bit more with each start.

At the dish, though, Ohtani was a mess.

He flailed at an inside changeup to lead off the game with a strikeout. At least he went down swinging on that one. He got caught looking at a filthy, full-count sinker at the knees in the third, before staring at a strike three right down the middle in both the fifth and seventh innings. And there was at least one runner on base for each of those three backwards Ks.

He did draw a walk in his fifth plate appearance, avoiding turning a golden sombrero into a platinum sombrero. Nevertheless, it was the seventh four-strikeout game of his career—albeit the first one in which he was also racking up strikeouts on the mound along the way.

Philadelphia Phillies Winners and Losers

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Winner: Cristopher Sánchez

In a world where Paul Skenes doesn't exist, Cristopher Sánchez may well be your 2025 NL Cy Young winner.

Yes, I said the exact same thing earlier in praise of Freddy Peralta's work on Saturday, but it applies here, too. In fact, Sánchez is most likely going to be the first runner-up to Skenes when the results of that vote are announced next month, going 13-5 with a 2.50 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 9.4 K/9, and an MLB-best-among-pitchers 8.0 bWAR.

And through the first 21 Dodgers batters faced, he was even more marvelous than usual, sitting on a line of 5.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K before unraveling a bit. He walked Freddie Freeman, gave up a single to Tommy Edman, and then had the misfortune of running into October Kiké Hernández for a two-run double.

If Rob Thomson had any reason to believe in the non-Jhoan Duran portion of his bullpen, maybe he would have pulled Sánchez before that double. But Sánchez, more than 90 pitches into his night, was the best option he had.

Loser: Phillies Bullpen Underperforming the Dodgers Bullpen

Matt Strahm almost wriggled out of it.

After David Robertson opened the seventh inning by putting the Dodgers' No. 8 and No. 9 hitters on base, Strahm was called upon to...steal the Declaration of Independence? No, wait, retire the top of the Dodgers' vaunted lineup. That makes more sense.

He got Shohei Ohtani to strike out and induced a weak infield fly by Mookie Betts, bringing Teoscar Hernández to the plate to redeem a rough first six innings with a monumental home run.

Meanwhile, that Dodgers bullpen that we've been hating on for months on end?

It did its job.

Granted, "Dodgers bullpen" in this case means starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow, starting pitcher Roki Sasaki, and one batter for Alex Vesia. They avoid using Blake Treinen and Tanner Scott, who appear to have finally pitched their way out of high-leverage situations.

But while the Phils 'pen allowed three runs, the Dodgers put up nothing but goose eggs. And there's no chance the Phillies come back to win this series if that continues.

Detroit Tigers Winners and Losers

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Winner: Troy Melton

While what this Tigers rookie pitcher did against the Mariners didn't exactly rival Cam Schlittler's Herculean performance against Boston on Thursday, he did give Detroit more of a chance in this game than most were expecting.

At least Schlittler tossed a seven-inning gem in Game 161 for the Yankees. Melton had started a grand total of two games in the past two months, predominantly serving in a middle relief role and last going at least four innings in an appearance on August 13.

After using all of Tarik Skubal, Casey Mize, and Jack Flaherty in the wild card round, though, Detroit didn't have much choice but to hope for the best with their one player who doesn't even have a headshot on ESPN's roster page.

Save for one solo homer by Julio Rodríguez, Melton delivered. He went four innings, allowing just two hits while striking out four M's. And he set the stage for what was (aside from a three-batter blip from Rafael Montero) an extraordinary seven innings of relief in the extra-innings victory.

Loser: Regular-Season Momentum

The Tigers were supposed to be dead.

Deader than dead.

Zombie Kittens, if you will.

They went 9-22 in their final 31 regular-season games. The only other team to win fewer than 11 games during that stretch was the Colorado Rockies, and there has never been a worse year to be in a two-team club with the Rockies for any statistical reason.

Despite the collapse, they snuck into the postseason on a tiebreaker. But no one outside of that clubhouse honestly gave them any chance at doing some damage, right?

Nevertheless, they knocked out the Guardians, they stole Game 1 from the Mariners, and now they've got Tarik Skubal on the bump for Game 2.

Could they stun the world?

We said all season long that there was no dominant team and that this postseason would be about as wide open as an October has ever been. Even given that reminder, though, it's hard to believe our eyes.

The Detroit team that would have been the No. 1 seed for most of the season might have reanimated. And if Skubal goes out there and shoves for another 14 strikeouts on Sunday, we might need to start thinking about how we'd like our crow prepared.

Seattle Mariners Winners and Losers

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Winner: The Two Brightest Stars

Most of Seattle's lineup seemed to think it was facing Tarik Skubal in Game 1. Outside of Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez, the Mariners went a combined 0-for-28.

But at least the dynamic duo delivered something good.

Rodríguez homered in the fourth, added an RBI single in the sixth, and gave the M's late hope with one more single in the eleventh. Unfortunately, his baserunning gaffe in the sixth inning ruined one of the few chances Seattle had to score runs in this game.

Raleigh was unable to provide any moonshots in this one, and his foul out in the eleventh inning was all sorts of painful. But at least he got three singles. It's hardly his fault there were no ducks on the pond for those hits, nor that no one other than J-Rod made any effort to drive him in.

Loser: Letting George Kirby Pitch to Kerry Carpenter a Third Time

There are exceptionally few times when facing the Detroit Tigers when a manager might be tempted to intentionally walk a batter to face Riley Greene instead.

But in the fifth inning, the Mariners found themselves at that unusual fork in the road.

With Kerry Carpenter coming to the plate, George Kirby was already at 83 pitches after battling through consecutive lengthy ABs with Parker Meadows and Gleyber Torres. And though he had not yet allowed any runs, we're talking about a rather stressful 83 pitches, as there was a runner in scoring position with no outs in both the second and third innings before he worked his way out of those jams.

With first base open and southpaws Caleb Ferguson and Gabe Speier both available out of the bullpen to face lefties Carpenter and Greene, that's a tough spot to just let it ride with Kirby against a hitter who has absolutely owned him in the past.

Carpenter entered the night 4-for-8 with four home runs off Kirby. After retiring Carpenter in the first two matchups, given their history, it almost felt like he was due to go yard.

And he did.

Bonus Winner: Rested Teams Pouncing Early

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Over the past two postseasons, there have been a combined total of eight Division Series, in which the team with the first-round bye advanced just 50 percent of the time.

One thing the four losers with home-field advantage had in common was a rusty offense in Game 1, blowing what was supposed to be a massive advantage in that initial matchup of starting pitchers.

The Phillies were the only No. 1 or No. 2 seed to get ousted in this round last year, and it began with an immediate offensive dud. Though the Mets put Kodai Senga out there, pitching for the first time in months, the Phillies managed absolutely nothing after Kyle Schwarber's leadoff homer, and they never recovered in the series.

The previous year, three of the teams with a bye lost. Here's how they fared in Game 1:

• Baltimore Orioles: two runs on five hits with the Rangers starting a guy (Andrew Heaney) who spent most of September pitching in relief.
  
• Los Angeles Dodgers: Shut out for the first seven innings, didn't score until trailing 11-0.
  
• Atlanta Braves: Five hits, zero runs against seven Phillies pitchers, none of whom were Zack Wheeler or Aaron Nola.

You simply have to pounce on that Game 1.

The Brewers sure did that, scoring nine runs in the first two innings of their win over Chicago.

The Blue Jays homered in each of the first two innings before pouring it on late against New York.

The Phillies ultimately lost their opener, but they did jump on Shohei Ohtani early with three second-inning runs. We expected that to be a sensational series that could go either way, and Game 1 did nothing to change that feeling.

And, well, the Mariners did pretty much exactly what the Orioles did two years ago, getting two runs on six hits while drawing a starting pitcher who had been a reliever in recent weeks. Doesn't bode well for what had been the AL favorite to reach the World Series, but maybe they'll surprise us now by pouncing on Tarik Skubal in Game 2.