AP photo San Diego Padres' Fernando Tatis Jr., center, celebrates with teammates after the Padres defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 4-0 to advance to the NLDS.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — From 21-year-old budding superstar Fernando Tatis Jr. to 36-year-old reliever Craig Stammen, the San Diego Padres tossed aside more than two decades of futility and brought joy to a city that’s had its sports psyche beaten down for far too long.

Stammen and eight fellow relievers combined on a four-hitter in a brilliant, record-setting effort that sent the Padres over the St. Louis Cardinals 4-0 Friday night in the deciding Game 3 of their NL wild-card series.

The Padres won a postseason series for the first time in 22 years and advanced to face the NL West rival Los Angeles Dodgers in the Division Series at Arlington, Texas, starting Tuesday.

Stammen, making his first start in 10 years, said the Padres weren’t wrapped up in past playoff failures, including being eliminated from the playoffs by the Cardinals three times since 1996.

“We’re trying to write our own piece of history right now,” said Stammen, who mentioned the Padres’ return to a brown and gold color scheme. “It’s icing on the cake to maybe turn the page on some of the San Diego struggles in the playoffs against the Cardinals, turn the page on maybe some struggles within the organization, the blue Padres, and now we’re the brown Padres. Excited to build some memories with the new colors.”

The nine pitchers marked the most used in a nine-inning shutout in any big league game since at least 1901.

With starters Mike Clevinger and Dinelson Lamet unavailable due to injuries suffered in their final regular-season starts, rookie manager Jayce Tingler was forced to tap the Padres’ already-stressed bullpen and it came through magnificently. San Diego became the first team in baseball history to use eight or more pitchers in three straight postseason games.

“What those guys did this series and tonight, wow,” Tingler said. “They’ve been overworked, they’ve been overtaxed. Man to man, everybody came up and said, ‘I’m good, give me the ball. I’m good, give me the ball.’ Tonight, for me, was as team-oriented as so many guys contributed again. That’s who we are. That’s why we’re going to continue to keep playing.”

Trevor Rosenthal, who started his career with the Cardinals, struck out the side in the ninth and the team began celebrating in empty Petco Park. Players gestured toward fans who watched from balconies overlooking the ballpark. Fans crowded downtown and honked car horns and chanted.

This was the first postseason series victory for the Padres since the 1998 NLCS.

While the Padres celebrated, the Cardinals found out Hall of Famer Bob Gibson had died.

“It’s kind of hard losing a legend,” catcher Yadier Molina said. “You can lose a game, but when you lose a guy like Bob Gibson, just hard. Bob was funny, smart, he brought a lot of energy. When he talked, you listened. It was good to have him around every year. We lose a game, we lose a series, but the tough thing is we lost one great man.”

All four Division Series feature matchups between division rivals. All seven Central teams lost in the first round, with the Cardinals joining Cincinnati, the Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Chicago White Sox and Minnesota.

Tatis, who homered twice and drove in five runs in Thursday night’s wild 11-9 victory, doubled into the left-field corner off losing pitcher Jack Flaherty with one out in the fifth and scored on Eric Hosmer’s two-out double to right-center.

The Padres added on against reliever Alex Reyes in the seventh, on a bases-loaded walk to Hosmer, Manny Machado’s fielder’s choice and an error on third baseman Tommy Edman.

Rookie Jake Cronenworth homered in the eighth.

MARLINS 2, CUBS 0

The Miami Marlins didn’t need a hand from a fan at Wrigley Field to knock the Chicago Cubs out of the playoffs this time. They did just fine on their own, and they showed they’re hardly bottom feeders.

Garrett Cooper homered against Yu Darvish in a two-run seventh, hard-throwing rookie Sixto Sánchez dominated for five innings and the Miami Marlins won their first playoff series in 17 years, beating the Cubs 2-0 Friday to complete a two-game wild card series sweep.

Miami will face Atlanta in the NL Division Series in Houston starting Tuesday.

Led by manager Don Mattingly and CEO Derek Jeter, the Marlins remained unbeaten in all seven postseason series they have played following triumphs in the 1997 and 2003 World Series.

“The one thing that we talked about us all year was why not us?” Mattingly said. “With this kind of pitching, you can do anything. … You feel like you’ve got a good shot at kind of stopping almost anybody if you make pitches.”

Miami lost 105 games in 2019 and became the first team to reach the playoffs after a 100-loss season. The Marlins finished second in the NL East at 31-29 being beset by a virus outbreak early this season that forced 18 players from the field following the opening series and prevented them from playing for more than a week.

Chicago, the NL Central champion, went 3 for 27 (.111) with runners on base in the series. Javier Báez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo combined to go 0 for 12 Friday and finished the series 1 for 24. The trio is 19 for 142 (.134) with 52 strikeouts and six walks in the postseason since the 2016 World Series title as Chicago has lost nine of 13.

Cooper gave the Marlins a 1-0 lead with two out in the seventh with a drive into the seats beyond the left-field wall. Matt Joyce doubled off the glove of diving center fielder Ian Happ, and Miguel Rojas chased Darvish with an RBI single.