Fernando

Tatis Jr.

Tatis Jr. gave the Padres an early 2-1 lead in the third with a solo homer off Eduardo Rodriguez. The 26-year-old star also singled, and the three-reach game improves his slash to .262/.358/.450. It’s not the superstar level he was playing at to begin the year, but it’s far from unusable.

The 26-year-old superstar led off the home half of the first with a single off of Jack Leiter but wound up getting stranded at third base. He then walked to open the third inning, stole second base and scored the Padres’ first run on an RBI single by Luis Arraez. Tatis also drove in a run of his own with an RBI double in the fourth inning, giving the Padres a 2-1 lead they would never relinquish. He’s enjoying another solid season at the dish, slashing .261/.355/.444 with 15 homers, 39 RBI and 19 stolen bases through his first 87 ballgames.

The 22-year-old budding superstar is certainly deserving of the honor, slashing .288/.391/.549 with 23 homers, 67 RBI and 12 swipes on the year. He’ll be joined on the National League bench by Pete Alonso, Corbin Carroll, Elly De La Cruz, Brendan Donovan, Hunter Goodman, Matt Olson, Kyle Schwarber, Kyle Stowers, Eugenio Suarez and Fernando Tatis Jr.

The Padres moved Tatis from the leadoff spot to the cleanup spot about a week ago to try and shake up their offense. He went 3-for-21 with one run scored and no RBIs, so they’ll go back to him hitting at the top of the order. Jackson Merrill will move up one spot to second in the order with Manny Machado hitting third and Luis Arraez hitting cleanup.

The Padres are shaking up their lineup against MacKenzie Gore, as Tatis will move from his usual leadoff spot to the middle of the lineup. Luis Arraez will instead be at the top of the lineup followed by Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill. Hitting fourth would provide more chances of run-production for Tatis, but maybe would cut down on some stolen base opportunities.

It came in a 10-3 game in the ninth inning, but Tatis was able to smoke a three-run blast to center to give him his 15th homer of the year. He’s gone deep seven times in June, and while his .782 OPS for the month isn’t awe-inspiring, it’s a solid improvement on the .626 mark he registered in May.

In taking Taylor Clarke deep in the seventh, Tatis finally snapped a home run drought that had lingered since May 27. Until this week, he’d been hitting pretty well aside from the lack of homers, but he entered tonight on a four-game hitless streak. He has 14 homers in 74 games on the whole, keeping him on a similar pace to where he was the last two years (25 in 141 games in 2023, 21 in 102 games last season).

Tatis went 0-for-3 with a pair of walks during Friday’s series opener after checking out fine following a hit-by-pitch scare earlier this week against the Dodgers. It’s an extremely encouraging sign that the 26-year-old field-tilting talent managed to avoid serious injury when he was struck on the hand by a pitch during Thursday’s contest in Los Angeles and didn’t need any extra time off to rest and recover.

There had been some thought that the 26-year-old superstar would need to miss some time after getting hit in the hand by a pitch on Thursday night, but all checked out fine and he’s ready to play through the pain and return to action. On the season, he’s slashing a healthy .270/.354/.457 with 13 homers, 31 RBI and 15 stolen bases through his first 72 ballgames.

Taits was still in a lot of pain after the game, and there’s still the chance he’ll miss some time. That’d be a big problem for a Padres team that punted on adding depth in the offseason. Brandon Lockridge could start in his place Friday.