Fernando Tatis Jr. Pads Scoreless Power Drought With 131 Plate Appearances — Padres Score
Fernando Tatis Jr. kept the padres score in the wrong direction again, extending a 131-plate-appearance home run drought after another loud but empty swing against the Chicago Cubs. He still reached 102.8 mph on the bat, yet the ball stayed in play and the Padres finished with a 5-4 loss.
Tatis Stays Stuck At The Fence
In the bottom of the eighth inning at Petco Park, Tatis came up with no outs and the bases loaded while the Padres trailed by two runs. Ben Brown hung a curveball on a 1-1 count, Tatis squared it up, and the result was a sacrifice fly by his own description.
That at-bat fit the larger pattern. Through 30 games, he led the majors with a 64.7 percent hard-hit rate and had 55 batted balls at 95 mph or harder, four more than Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., but the damage was still not showing up as home runs.
Padres Trips Through Coors And Mexico City
The recent trip through Coors Field and Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú added to the drought without breaking it. Tatis went 5-for-21 with five singles on the swing through those parks, and he remained without a home run after 214 days.
That stretch also sharpened the frustration around a hitter who has not lacked bat speed. Nearly three weeks ago, he said, the baseball gods are really mad at me, and after Wednesday’s loss he said, "I’ve been close for a while, but it’s just a sacrifice fly."
Padres Keep Working On The Fix
The Padres have not sat still. They have put drills in place for Tatis designed to get his body in a great spot so he can drive the ball, and the staff has kept working through the issue with him.
Randy Knorr said, "I’ve never seen that before," after watching the run of near-misses, while Steven Souza Jr. said, "I feel like I’ve been saying that for three weeks, but I do think it’s a matter of a couple clicks and ironing some stuff out, and then it’s just going to go." Raul Padron added, "We’re working on it. We continue to work," and said that being the No. 1 guy hitting the ball hard in all of MLB and not getting the result he wants makes it hard.
The hard contact keeps showing up. The home runs do not. For the Padres, that leaves one of their top hitters producing singles and sacrifice flies at a rate that does not match the damage his exit velocity suggests, and it keeps the pressure on every trip to the plate until the first ball finally gets over the fence.
