Padres Have Insisted Tatis Jr. Will Hit For Power Based On His Recent Production

Outfielder Fernando Tatis Jr. has been going through some tough times lately, but the San Diego Padres have stayed the course in backing him up. They’ve insisted there’s nothing wrong with their star outfielder despite his lack of power production, and last night Tatis rewarded the Padres with a walk-off home run in the ninth against the Cincinnati Reds to get a much-needed 5-4 win. 

Tatis has been hitting well for a while now, and manager Craig Stammen pushed back against the idea that his outfielder is now “back.” 

“I don’t think he ever left, personally,” said Stammen in a piece written by AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. “This is just waves of baseball. If that was a stretch in the middle of the season, it would probably be less talked about. But because it was the beginning of the season, those are the only stats we can look at.

“He’s definitely been putting in the work. And sometimes the work doesn’t just translate in a day or two. It takes time. The hitting coaches have done a great job with him, staying patient. He’s done a great job, staying positive and smiling and being OK with failing sometimes. But I think his perseverance has shown lately.”

Stammen is absolutely right about that. Tatis has turned himself into the consummate leadoff man, with several multi-hit games that have given the Padres plenty of opportunities. 

The interesting thing about this particular home run is that in a weird way it reflected Tatis’ struggles this season in the home run department. This one was a line drive with an exit velocity of just over 106 mph, but Tatis had it pegged as a possible double and ran hard out of the box. 

“It was low, so I was like, ‘You better get on second,’” he said. “Then I saw everybody jumping.”

The homer also put the spotlight on an intriguing decision by Reds manager Tito Francona, who had a chance to walk Tatis with two out and nobody on. 

“When the ball was hit, I was kind of looking at my lineup card like, ‘OK, we’re going to have an open base, what do we want to do?’” Francona said. “I didn’t think that ball was going to get out.”

He was wrong about that, which begs the question of whether he should have used the open base on Tatis in the first place. But the outfielder’s lack of home run production so far led to a different approach on this occasion, and the Padres reaped the benefits. 

Stammen also offered a final thought that’s been in the minds of Padres fans who have been watching Tatis for the last couple of weeks as he’s been on his homer-less tear. 

“It’s a wonder that he hasn’t run into a few more,” Stammen said.