SAN DIEGO — Monday had already brought a partial solar eclipse over the skies of this city, which was commemorating the 20th anniversary of Petco Park. Then, Fernando Tatis Jr. and the San Diego Padres surpassed the Chicago Cubs in historic fashion.

The Padres rallied from an eight-run deficit to beat the Cubs 9-8 and equal the largest comeback win in franchise history. Chicago scored four runs in the second against Yu Darvish and four more in the fourth before San Diego made it a game with a seven-run sixth, the Padres’ highest-scoring inning since another seven-run frame last Aug. 5 against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Monday night’s exclamation point arrived in the bottom of the eighth: After being brushed back by the first pitch he saw from Cubs closer Adbert Alzolay, Tatis hammered the next offering for a go-ahead two-run homer and tore around the bases as the crowd and home dugout exulted.

“All credit to the boys. We were down 8-0 and we were never out of the game,” said Tatis, who was hitless in his first three at-bats and just missed robbing Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson of a triple in the top of the fourth. “We kept taking good at-bats against tough pitches, and the boys just started executing, we started moving the line, and we just kept believing in each other.”

Fernando Tatis Jr. for the lead!

The @Padres have stormed all the way back from 8-0 down! pic.twitter.com/inwjsDx0Mn

— MLB (@MLB) April 9, 2024

The Padres had last successfully erased an eight-run deficit on July 8, 2021, when pitcher Daniel Camarena entered in relief of Darvish and, later batting for himself, launched a grand slam off then-Washington Nationals ace Max Scherzer for his first career hit. Late Monday inside the home clubhouse, multiple Padres who had participated in the 2021 game debated whether their latest comeback trumped it.

“You have a pitcher get his first hit, and it’s a grand slam off Max Scherzer — that’s pretty epic,” first baseman Jake Cronenworth said. “Also a pretty epic comeback tonight.”

Cronenworth was responsible for jump-starting Monday’s resurgence. After Tatis drew a leadoff walk in the sixth, Cronenworth had a nine-pitch at-bat that included a near-homer foul ball and ended with a two-run blast that easily stayed fair. Manny Machado subsequently reached on an error, Jurickson Profar singled, Ha-Seong Kim tripled and Jackson Merrill singled before Xander Bogaerts, like Cronenworth, hit his first home run of the season. That made it 8-7.

To hear the Padres tell it, their rally actually began two innings earlier, after the Cubs had cruised to an 8-0 lead. In the dugout, Tatis lamented coming just short of intercepting Swanson’s drive to the wall in the right-field corner. Manager Mike Shildt encouraged his star right fielder to continue giving full effort. Tatis replied that he and his teammates would do just that.

“Both of us knew that we were gonna fight this game and we were gonna keep at it until the end,” Tatis said.

Several innings later, after closer Robert Suarez retired the side in the top of the ninth, the Padres celebrated the franchise’s fourth eight-run comeback win. Besides the so-called Daniel Camarena Game, they rallied from such a deficit June 10, 1974, against the Pittsburgh Pirates and May 23, 1970, at the San Francisco Giants. Monday also continued an early-season trend for a 6-7 Padres team that has stayed afloat with several offensive outbursts. San Diego has scored five or more runs in an inning four times in 2024.

“I see a continuation of really the identity this team has set forth from the very beginning,” Shildt said. “We talked about (how) winners find a solution, get better as the game goes, never give anything away in competition, regardless of the circumstances. I think this club’s already proved it multiple times this year and clearly proved it tonight.”

(Photo of Fernando Tatis Jr. celebrating his eighth-inning home run: Orlando Ramirez / USA Today)