SAN DIEGO _ The Padres came back again.
It seemed they were hardly going to be introduced in their first postseason party in 14 years.
Then they showed up with noisemakers to force a decisive third game in their Wild Card Series against the St. Louis Cardinals with an 11-9 victory Thursday night at Petco Park.
Game 3 will be played Friday at 4 p.m. if the Dodgers defeat Milwaukee on Thursday night or at 7 p.m. if the Brewers win.
Fernando Tatis Jr. and Wil Myers became the first pair of teammates to have two home runs in a postseason game since Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in 1932, and the Padres became the first team ever to hit five home runs from the sixth inning on in a postseason game.
The five home runs and 11 runs were franchise postseason records.
Tatis and Manny Machado hit back-to-back home runs in the sixth inning to tie a game the Padres trailed nearly from the start.
Myers followed with a line drive to the bricks at the base of the Western Metal building in the seventh to put the Padres up. Tatis' two-run homer later in the inning extended the lead to 9-6.
With help from a Tatis throwing error, the Cardinals cut the deficit with two unearned runs off Drew Pomeranz in the eighth inning before Myers hit a two-run homer to center field in the top of the ninth.
Paul Goldschmidt led off the ninth with a home run, and the Cardinals had runners at first and second with no outs before Trevor Rosenthal retired the next three batters.
In coming back from down 6-2 in the sixth, the team that rallied in a major league-high 22 victories during the regular season continues its quest for the big cake at least one more day.
If they want it to extend into next week, they will need a miracle on a scale somewhere between juggling knives and walking on water.
The Padres might have to use a dozen pitchers Friday, as they brought just two healthy starting pitchers into the series and used 10 of their 12 relievers over the past two games.
They will gladly try to navigate an improbable clincher.
Now that their offense is recognizable, they can at least be expected to put up a fight.
Before Tatis' three-run line drive into the left field seats, the Padres were 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position Thursday and 2-for-13 in the series.
Tatis had been 0-for-4, making outs twice in each game when a base hit would have scored at least one run.
The phenom struggling was one of multiple ways in which a fantastic season seemed on the brink of fizzling.
For one thing, the Padres had been the major leagues' best team with runners in scoring position during the regular season.
But not much in the past two days had been like the two months before it.
It was announced before the series began Wednesday that Mike Clevinger and Dinelson Lamet were not available due to the arm ailments that prompted them to leave their previous starts. Lamet finished third in the NL with a 2.09 ERA. Clevinger was acquired at great cost at the trade deadline to be atop the rotation.
The Padres decided to start Chris Paddack in Game 1. He immediately put the Padres in a worse hole than Davies would 26 hours later, allowing four runs in the first inning and being charged with two more in the third.
A franchise postseason record seven relievers were used to cover the final 6 2/3 innings Wednesday. Seven pitched in relief of Davies on Thursday.
Davies, who had not allowed more than three runs nor gone fewer than five innings in any of his 12 starts, yielded a run in the first and three more in the second.
Where St. Louis pounced on Paddack' pitches in the zone Wednesday, they didn't fall prey to Davies' pitches outside the zone Thursday.
As it was Wednesday, a single by La Jolla Country Day alumnus Tommy Edman was the Cardinals' first hit Thursday. He scored on Yadier Molina's single. Matt Carpenter led off the second inning with a double and scored on Harrison Bader's one-out single. Kolten Wong followed with a home run right field, on Davies' 48th pitch of the game.
The Padres scored two runs in the fourth inning, but even that felt defeating as they loaded the bases with no outs and then loaded them again with one. Myers, who hit .370 with runners in scoring position and two outs during the season, struck out with runners at first and second in the fifth.
Tatis and Machado struck out with runners at first and second to end the third inning.
It seemed it would be an ugly way for one of the major league's best teams in 2020 to have its sizzle snuffed out.
But then the phenom who has provided so many moments and seemingly endless energy in his two short seasons in the majors made it so the exit wouldn't be so quick.
It was Tatis who said in July, "We're aiming for the big cake."
He and teammates would often pantomime scarfing down cake after big hits. By the postseason, the mantra had become a hashtag on social media and something the organization was utilizing in its branding and in-game production.
Tatis yawned at least once while waiting in the on-deck circle for St. Louis reliever Giovanny Gallegos to finish his warm-up pitches.
After turning on a slider to drill a 377-foot wake-up call, Tatis turned to the dugout and pumped his fists as he essentially jumped down the first base line.
Machado, likewise, threw his bat and slapped his chest as he yelled toward the dugout before beginning his jog around the bases.
Tatis, whose reaction to home runs have become as must-see as the hits themselves, flipped his bat a good 20 feet before his second homer had even cleared the right field wall.
