Fernando Tatis Jr. has favored pink accessories to highlight his uniform since making his Major League debut in 2019. Whether it’s shoelaces, sweatbands, a belt, headband, or cleats, a something pink is often on display. It is a signal to his mother, while he is playing, that she is always on his mind.
On Saturday night in San Diego, it was a pink glove that stood out in the fourth inning as he galloped across the right-field grass and, with his bouncing body fully extended, reached at the last second to drive a rocket into the evening. air. With two baskets and two out, Boston’s Triston Casas had drilled a breakthrough drive toward the outfield wall with a muzzle velocity of 108 miles per hour. He was sailing on Tatis’s head… until he wasn’t anymore.
In many ways, with his bat, his glove and his celebrations, Tatis is back to normal, a 24-year-old superstar whose career had spiraled out of control in more ways than one.
“Now it’s every day,” manager Bob Melvin said, marveling at Tatis and his penchant for impressive plays. “Give him a few reps and he can play any position in any sport.”
Upon his re-entry to the sport on April 20, following two surgeries and an 80-game suspension for a positive steroid test, Tatis had not played in a major league game in over a year. The expectations for his return were immense, but so were the questions.
How watered down could his game be after more than a year away? Would his surgically repaired left shoulder, which had been dislocated multiple times in 2021, diminish his ability at the plate? Has a second operation on his right wrist that was fractured in a motorcycle accident in the Dominican Republic finally set things right?
Then there were the additional questions: After the public embarrassment that came with a positive test for clostebol, an anabolic steroid, and his subsequent punishment, how would Tatis handle the spotlight during his comeback? And had she sufficiently mended the broken trust with her teammates?
“It wasn’t going to be easy,” Tatis said during a conversation in the Padres clubhouse last weekend. “This is probably the hardest game in the world. I got myself ready. There is a mental routine, a physical routine. But, you know, I’m just trying to be ready in every way.”
As the Padres travel to Yankee Stadium this weekend and Tatis faces perhaps his toughest test yet in terms of public backlash, comes the biggest gamble in Padres history: a 14-year, $340 million contract awarded to Tatis after just 143 major league games. be back on track to pay dividends. The young star once again rises to the occasion and people around the Padres speak of his newfound grace and humility.
“The responsibility has definitely been there for him,” said Joe Musgrove, San Diego’s ace starting pitcher. “And he started about 80 games ago. After the suspension, he went through a low period for a few weeks and it was understandable. But he’s done a good job of putting it behind him. He is patching things up with the players, the coaching staff and the fans. He has forgiven himself and gotten over his mistakes.
“Some mistakes you can’t fix. Some you can. This one, he can.
Musgrove’s tone, when discussing Tatis’ behavior since the suspension, was very different from the past two seasons, as tensions routinely boiled over between Tatis, his teammates and the Padres’ coaching staff. The fights on the bench and questions about Tatis’ maturity, at least for now, have faded as he has stayed out of trouble and worked to prepare for his return.
A big part of that preparation, Tatis said, involved the mental side of his game. He knew the noise would be roaring, from opponents and rival fans looking for any weakness they could find. He spent a lot of time over the winter “having good baseball conversations with good baseball players,” he said. “I feel like I put it all together.”
The conversations began, according to Tatis, with his father, Fernando Tatis Sr., who played in the majors from 1997 to 2010. Back home in the Dominican Republic, Tatis Jr. also spoke with mentors like Wilton Veras, who played briefly for the Sox. Rojas, and with his friend Robinson Canó, the former MLB star who was twice suspended for performance-enhancing drugs.
“It’s always good to talk baseball with that guy,” Tatis said of Canó. “And there are more guys on the list, but if I started listing them all, I probably wouldn’t end today.”
The Padres brought Tatis to their FanFest in early February specifically to check one of the early boxes: his re-entry into public life. It was a friendly local crowd at Petco Park, but it served its purpose. Even if the suspension wasn’t complete, it allowed him one foot out of the penalty box and allowed him to fully focus on baseball moving forward.
Melvin, who was without Tatis in his first 182 games as Padres manager, was thrilled to include the young star in a lineup.
“It was a day of celebration for both of us, really,” Melvin said. “I had been watching to the side for so long. And really, he was one of the reasons I came here.”
Tatis, who said hitting would be the hardest part of his comeback, went 0-for-5 at the plate in his first game but had at least one hit in each of his next nine games. Overall, he’s hit .267 with seven home runs, as of Tuesday, below his high standards but showing regular flashes of his old self.
The same night as his sensational catch against Boston, Tatis drilled a Chris Sale slider 440 feet into the night, giving him home runs in back-to-back games for the first time in nearly two years. Showcasing his newfound comfort in the outfield, four nights earlier, he uncorked a perfect throw from right field clocked at 96.8 mph, on the fly, to catch Kansas City’s Vinnie Pasquantino, who was trying to move from first to third on a single.
Tatis, who came to the majors as an error-prone but exciting shortstop, is the only outfielder in the league this season with two assists traveling 96 mph or faster. In Minnesota on May 10, he took out Carlos Correa at home plate on a 100 mph laser.
“He’s coming out hot,” said Boston manager Alex Cora, who noted that his Red Sox “have seen three of the most complete players in the game in the last three weeks” in Tatis, Atlanta’s Ronald Acuna Jr. and Julio Rodriguez. from Seattle. .
Tatis’s inclusion in that group was expected after he finished fourth in National League MVP Award voting in 2020 and third in 2021. But Cora delivered that praise to a player who was left out for more than a year. year amid numerous questions about his future. she demonstrated how many fences Tatis has repaired.
“Overall, I don’t know how anyone could handle him that fast and do a better job than him,” Melvin said of Tatis’s return to prominence.
The public reaction, while sometimes abrasive, has not fazed Tatis.
When he hit a home run during a Class AAA rehab assignment in early April, the pitcher he torched, Giants minor leaguer Kade McClure, responded by tweeting: “Cheater homers on rehab assignment during suspension on steroids.” Tatis shrugged at the deleted message. He said that he expected reactions like that and that he will continue to play and have fun.
True to his word, when fans at Wrigley Field serenaded him with chants of “He’s on steroids!” Tatis disarmed them with a playful shimmy.
“I wouldn’t say I would have done it that way,” center fielder Trent Grisham said. “But smiles often diffuse hostility.”
Added Melvin: “He’s like the best artist, right? When it comes to baseball.”
Another of Tatis’s advisers has been his teammate Nelson Cruz, who has the prospect of returning from his own 50-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs in 2013. Be yourself, Cruz advised Tatis, and go play. .
That’s what Tatis did early in his career, when his style helped him rise to celebrity status so quickly that he trailed only the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts in t-shirt sales during the 2021 season. It remains to be seen if Tatis can regain that level of popularity, but in just over a month, it looks like he’s headed in the right direction.
“I don’t want to be selfish,” he said when asked for an early self-assessment of his game. “Obviously, it’s going well. But I know I have a lot more room to go. I feel like I’m not at my best yet.”
Reactions to his first trip to Dodger Stadium this month were noticeably muted — the hostility remains directed primarily at Padres infielder Manny Machado — but Tatis smiled when asked to look forward to this weekend’s visit. week to Yankee Stadium.
“That’s going to be good,” he said. “We’ll see. New York. The good thing is that there will be a lot of Dominicans out there. So that’s on the positive side. But it’s still New York.”
He chuckled as he spoke, the various pink accessories practically glowing behind him from his locker. A 24-year-old who once again has his career ahead of him and is eager to experience all that Yankee Stadium has to offer.