Andy Ibáñez smashed a three-run double in the eighth inning and the Detroit Tigers defeated Houston 5-2 on Wednesday to advance in the Major League Baseball playoffs.

Detroit swept the best-of-three American League wild card series to reach a second-round matchup against the Cleveland Guardians, who host the opener on Saturday.

The upstart Tigers, who had not reached the playoffs since 2014 and had not won a playoff series since 2013, ousted an Astros club that had reached the AL championship series in each of the past seven seasons.

"We just needed to believe," Ibáñez said. "That's the one thing we were missing. We believed coming into this series and we ended up beating a great team in the Astros and now we're moving on."

With the contest deadlocked and the bases loaded, Ibanez blasted the game-winning hit down the left-field line off left-handed Houston relief pitcher Josh Hader.

"I think that was the best at-bat of my life," Ibanez, a 31-year-old Cuban, said through a translator.

Also advancing were the Kansas City Royals, who edged host Baltimore 2-1 to sweep the Orioles.

"This group is special. We're not done yet," said Bobby Witt Jr., who drove in the winning run for the second game in a row.

The Royals, in the playoffs for the first time since winning the World Series in 2015, will face the New York Yankees in the second round starting Saturday in New York.

Meanwhile, the San Diego Padres held on to sweep the Atlanta Braves with a 5-4 win in Game 2 of their NL Wild Card Series.

Manny Machado added a two-run double with the bases loaded and Jackson Merrill, a top contender for NL Rookie of the Year, followed with a two-run triple as the sellout crowd of 47,705 – the largest in Petco Park history – roared.

The Padres, who would love to win a World Series title in memory of late owner Peter Seidler, head up Interstate 5 to face Shohei Ohtani and the NL West rival and top-seeded Los Angeles Dodgers in a National League Division Series starting Saturday night.

San Diego eliminated the 111-win Dodgers in a 2022 NLDS. (AFP/AP)