It’s win-or-go-home Thursday in the MLB wild-card round!

After losing their series openers, the Cleveland Guardians, San Diego Padres and New York Yankees all rebounded with Game 2 wins on Wednesday — setting up a dramatic day with three winner-take-all Game 3s. It’s only the second time in baseball history to host three winner-takes-all playoff games in one day.

Who has the edge with division series berths on the line? We’ve got you covered with pregame lineups, sights and sounds from the ballparks and postgame takeaways as each matchup ends.

Key links: Megapreview | Passan’s take | Bracket | Schedule

Jump to a matchup:
DET-CLE | SD-CHC | BOS-NYY

3 p.m. ET on ESPN

Game 3 starters: Jack Flaherty vs. Slade Cecconi

One thing that will decide Game 3: Perhaps it’s a wide brush, but Detroit’s ability to get the ball in play and convert scoring opportunities into actual runs — or not — is likely to decide Thursday’s game. The Tigers have managed to get quality at-bats early in innings and generate plenty of traffic on the bags, but they’ve been completely unable to turn those scoring chances into runs. Their 15 runners left on base in Game 2 was a record for a franchise whose postseason history dates back to 1907. Over three potential elimination games going back to last year’s ALDS matchup, the Tigers are a combined 3-for-38 (.079) with runners in scoring position. That must change or Detroit will be done. — Bradford Doolittle

Lineups

Tigers

TBD

Guardians

TBD

5 p.m. ET on ABC

Game 3 starters: Yu Darvish vs. Jameson Taillon

One thing that will decide Game 3: Look, this is going to be a battle of the bullpens. Yu Darvish and Jameson Taillon are both going to be on a very quick hook, even if they’re pitching well. But the difference might be which of those starters can get 14 or 15 outs instead of 10 or 11, especially for the Padres given that Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller both pitched in Games 1 and 2 and might have limited availability.

Darvish had a reputation early in his career as someone who couldn’t handle the pressure of a big game, but he has turned that around and has a 2.56 ERA in his six postseason starts with the Padres. Taillon, meanwhile, was terrific down the stretch with the Cubs, with a 1.57 ERA in six starts after coming off the IL in August. This looks like another low-scoring game in which the team that hits a home run will have the edge. — Schoenfield

Lineups

Padres

TBD

Cubs

TBD

8 p.m. ET on ESPN

Game 3 starters: Connelly Early vs. Cam Schlittler

One thing that will decide Game 3: Whether Connelly Early can give the Red Sox some length. Alex Cora’s aggressive decision to pull the plug on Brayan Bello’s start after just 28 pitches in Game 2 led to him using six Red Sox relievers. Garrett Whitlock, Boston’s best reliever not named Aroldis Chapman, threw 48 pitches. Chapman didn’t enter the game but warmed up for the possibility. Left-hander Kyle Harrison, a starter during the regular season, and right-hander Greg Weissert were the only pitchers in Boston’s bullpen not used in the first two games. Early doesn’t need to last seven innings. Harrison, who hasn’t pitched since last Friday, could cover multiple innings. But a quick departure would make the night very difficult for the Red Sox’s bullpen against a potent Yankees lineup. — Jorge Castillo

Lineups

Red Sox

TBD

Yankees

TBD

Baroness Michelle Mone says she will defy calls for her to step down from the House of Lords after PPE Medpro, a company founded by her husband, was ordered to repay £122m to the government for providing faulty PPE at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The peer has faced calls to stand down from MPs across the political spectrum, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who earlier this week agreed with Baroness Mone’s contention that the government was pursuing a “vendetta” in trying to recover improper Covid funding.

“Too right we are,” she said in comments at the Labour Party conference.

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In an extraordinary letter to the prime minister, Baroness Mone has accused Ms Reeves of endangering her and her family with her comments, citing the murders of Jo Cox and David Amess as evidence of the risks facing parliamentarians.

She also alleged ministerial interference in the civil and ongoing criminal investigations of PPE Medpro, and has called for an investigation into whether ministers have “improperly influenced” the Crown Prosecution Service and the National Crime Agency.

In the letter, sent from the private office of Baroness Mone OBE and seen by Sky News, she addresses the prime minister directly, writing in a personal capacity “first as a wife, second as a mother, and lastly as a Baroness.”

Referring to Ms Reeves’ comments, she writes: “The chancellor’s deliberate use of the term “vendetta”, a word connoting vengeance, feud and blood feud, is incendiary and has directly increased the risks to my personal safety…. My family and I now live with a heightened and genuine fear of appearing in public.”

She goes on to accuse Reeves and health secretary Wes Streeting of “falsehoods” in demanding that she hand back £122m, pointing out that she was never a director of PPE Medpro and “never received a penny from it personally.”

While the company was founded by her husband Doug Barrowman, a High Court judgement this week confirmed that Baroness Mone introduced it to the government’s VIP fast lane for PPE providers, and lobbied on its behalf in negotiations.

She has previously admitted that £29m of profit from the PPE contract was passed to a family trust of which she and her children are beneficiaries.

The peer has also accused the Prime Minister of “a total lie” when “you stated in Parliament that my children had received £29m into their bank accounts.”

Baroness Mone said that following these comments, she had received threatening and abusive communications, and cited the death of TV presenter Caroline Flack, who took her own life, as showing “the fatal consequences of personalised public vilification”.

“Your cabinet members, by repeating this knowingly false claim, are inciting hostility and inflaming public hatred against me.”

She has also accused the home secretary of influencing the NCA and Director of Public Prosecutions in unspecified meetings to discuss “high-profile cases”.

“That political influence is being brought to bear is, therefore, undeniable,” she said.

Read more:
Finances feeling tight? New figures help explain why
Living standards stall with signals flashing red for the PM

On Wednesday, PPE Medpro was ordered to repay £122m paid for 25 million surgical gowns that failed to meet sterility standards in breach of its contract with the Department of Health and Social Care.

PPE Medpro was put into administration the day before the judgment, with assets of just £666,000.

Asked if Baroness Mone would step down from the Lords, a spokesman said: “Those calling for Baroness Mone’s resignation from the House of Lords would be well advised to read the open letter sent this morning to the prime minister, which sets out how this has now become a personal attack and vendetta, politically motivated with loss of all balance and objectivity.”

Sky News has asked Number 10 and the Treasury for a response to the allegations made by Baroness Mone.

Monthly disposable income fell by £40 per person between Boris Johnson’s election victory in December 2019 and Rishi Sunak’s defeat in July 2024.

It is the first time in recorded British history that disposable income has been lower at the end of a parliamentary term than it was at the start, Sky News Data x Forensics analysis reveals.

Disposable income is the money people have left over after paying taxes and receiving benefits (including pensions). Essential expenses like rent or mortgage payments, council tax, food and energy bills all need to be paid from disposable income.

Previously published figures showed a slight improvement between December 2019 and June 2024, but those were updated by the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday.

There has been an uplift in the last year, although we’re poorer now than we were at the start of the year, and today we only have £1 more on average to spend or save each month than we did at the end of 2019.

That represents “an unmitigated disaster for living standards”, according to Lalitha Try, economist at independent living standards thinktank the Resolution Foundation.

Have things gotten better under Labour?

Disposable income has increased by £41 per person per month since Labour took office in July 2024. However, that masks a significant deterioration in recent months: it is lower now than it was at the start of 2025.

In the first six months of Labour’s tenure, disposable income rose by £55, a larger increase than under any other government in the same period. In part, this was down to the pay rises for public sector workers that had been agreed under the previous Conservative administration.

But the rise also represents a continuation of the trajectory from the final six months of the outgoing government. Between December 2023 and June 2024, monthly disposable income rose by £46.

That trajectory reversed in the first part of this year, and the average person now has £14 less to spend or save each month than they did at the start of 2025.

Jeremy Hunt, Conservative chancellor from October 2022 until the July 2024 election defeat, told Sky News: “The big picture is that it was the pandemic rather than actions of a government that caused it [the fall in disposable income].

“I clawed some back through (I know I would say this) hard work, and Labour tried to buy an instant boost through massive pay rises. The curious thing is why they have not fed through to the numbers.”

The £40 drop between Mr Johnson’s electoral victory in 2019 and Mr Sunak’s loss in 2024 is roughly the same as the average person spends on food and drink per week.

By comparison, since 1955, when the data dates back to, living standards have improved by an average of £115 per month between parliamentary terms.

Vital services, things like energy, food and housing, that all need to be paid for out of disposable income, have all increased in price at a faster rate than overall inflation since 2019 as well.

This means that the impact on savings and discretionary spending is likely to be more severe for most people, and especially so for lower earners who spend a larger proportion of their money on essentials.

Responding to our analysis, the Resolution Foundation’s Lalitha Try said: “Average household incomes fell marginally during the last parliament – an unmitigated disaster for living standards, as families were hit first by the pandemic and then the highest inflation in a generation.

“We desperately need a catch-up boost to household incomes in the second half of the 2020s, and to achieve that we’ll need a return to wider economic growth.”

Analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which also takes into account housing costs, says that disposable income is projected to be £45 a month lower by September 2029 than it was when Labour took office.

We approached both Labour and the Conservative Party for comment but both failed to respond.

Read more:
Is PM making progress towards his key policies?

How are Labour performing in other areas?

Labour have made “improving living standards in all parts of the UK” one of their main “missions” to achieve during this parliament.

Sam Ray-Chaudhuri, research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, told Sky News: “Labour’s mission to see an increase in living standards over the parliament remains a very unambitious one, given that (now) almost every parliament has seen a growth in disposable income.

“Doing so will represent an improvement compared with the last parliament, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are in a period of real lack of growth over the last few years.”

As well as the living standards pledge, the Sky News Data x Forensics team has been tracking some of the other key promises made by Sir Keir and his party, before and after they got into power, including both economic targets and policy goals.

Use our tracker to see how things like tax, inflation and economic growth has changed since Labour were elected.

The policy areas we have been tracking include immigration, healthcare, house-building, energy and crime. You can see Labour’s performance on each of those here.

Click here to read more information about why we picked these targets and how we’re measuring them.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.