SAN DIEGO – Fernando Tatis Jr. and Wil Myers each hit two home runs and Manny Machado also connected for the San Diego Padres, who rallied to beat the St. Louis Cardinals 11-9 Thursday night to force a deciding Game 3 in their NL wild-card series.
San Diego’s powerful offense finally burst to life after slumbering through a 7-4 loss in Game 1 and a listless first five innings Thursday.
Tatis and Myers are the second teammates in postseason history with multiple homers in the same game, joining Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series – including Ruth’s famed “called shot.”
The Padres are the first team in postseason history with five home runs from the sixth inning onward in a game.
Game 3 will be Friday.
ATLANTA – Ian Anderson dazzled in another shutout performance for Atlanta, and the Braves won a playoff series for the first time in almost two decades by sweeping the light-hitting Cincinnati Reds with a 5-0 victory Thursday.
Ronald Acuña Jr. had three hits for the NL East champions, including a run-scoring double in the fifth. After winning Wednesday’s series opener 1-0 in 13 innings, Atlanta broke open Game 2 on two-run homers by Marcell Ozuna and Adam Duvall off Raisel Iglesias in the eighth.
Anderson struck out nine in six innings as the Braves snapped their record-tying string of losses in 10 consecutive postseason rounds since their last playoff series win in 2001. Atlanta will face Miami or the Chicago Cubs in the NL Division Series in Houston.
OAKLAND, Calif. – Sure, most of these young Oakland Athletics might barely remember some of the gut-wrenching October losses over the past two decades.
Oakland finally ended 14 years of postseason futility, riding Chad Pinder’s go-ahead, two-run single in the fifth inning and repeated costly walks by Chicago’s relievers to rally past the White Sox 6-4 on Thursday and win the decisive third game of their AL wild-card round series.
The AL West champions lost the opener, then won on consecutive days at home and advanced to a Division Series against the rival Houston Astros starting Monday at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The winner of that matchup faces the New York Yankees or Tampa Bay for a spot in the World Series.
Sean Murphy hit a two-run homer in the fourth against Codi Heuer as A’s wives and families cheered from suites high above the diamond.
Oakland stopped a nine-game losing streak in winner-take-all postseason games, a major league record that dated to the 1973 World Series. The A’s had lost six straight playoff series since sweeping Minnesota in the 2006 Division Series, starting with when Detroit swept Oakland in that year’s Championship Series.
