The thing about the bat flip that landed Fernando Tatis Jr. on a video game cover is only a few dozen witnessed him turn the tide in the 2020 National League wild-card series against the Cardinals.
The biggest crowd in Petco Park history — 47,647 — raining down on him after homering on the first postseason pitch he saw in four years felt … different.
“Man, this crowd is unbelievable,” Tatis said after his two-run, first-inning homer set the tone the Padres’ 4-0 win over the Atlanta Braves in Game 1 of the NL wild-card series. “That’s what I was waiting for, just the energy that people (were) going to bring.”
If @PetcoPark had a roof, it would be gone 🤯 pic.twitter.com/iQNM6aXVyb
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) October 2, 2024
It was a miserable wait.
Tatis led the NL with 42 homers the year after that first postseason push, but the Padres collapsed down the stretch and finished under .500. He then broke his wrist that winter in an offseason motorcycle accident in the Dominican Republic, was suspended for steroid use just as he was ready to return in the summer of 2022 and was recovering from multiple procedures — two on the wrist and one to repair the torn labrum in his shoulder — when the Padres pushed into the NLCS without him.
It was a tough time.
Visits from Padres Chairman Peter Seidler, a champion of the slugger’s throughout the suspension, provided a guiding light in the darkest hours of his career.
“After all my surgeries, he came a couple times to my house and had beautiful conversation with him how San Diego was going to look the next three years, the next five years, the next 10 years,” Tatis recalled. “And what he asked for the city and the love he had for all of us, it was just unconditional. …
“Every step that I got from here in my career here in San Diego, he’s definitely going to be on my right shoulder popping in every single special moment.”
The first pitch he saw from a 21-year-old A.J. Smith-Shawver ranks up pretty high among those moments.
In fact, Tatis was looking for a fastball to announce his return to the postseason and got a middle-in, 94 mph four-seamer.
“Definitely, I was going for it probably before he released the pitch,” Tatis said. “But looking for my fastball, he left it over the plate and had definitely great results.”
Indeed.
The resulting drive, with Luis Arraez on first after a leadoff single, left Tatis’ bat at 113 mph on a 39-degree angle, the highest-arching home run of his career. The only question was how far the ball would travel and Tatis, after unraveling his twisting swing, made sure to watch it land in the first couple rows of the Estrella Jalisco Landing deck before tossing his bat toward the home dugout, pounding his chest and skipping up the first-base line with a tone-setting home run.
“When I was sitting in the dugout with (Kyle Higashioka), I couldn’t see Tati, (but) I heard it,” right-hander Michael King said after throwing seven shutout innings in the win. “And because the crack of the bat was louder than the fans you knew it was hit really hard. And then I looked up and I thought it was going out of the stadium. The thing was mashed.”
Added shortstop Xander Bogaerts: “That guy is special. It takes special players to make special players whenever you need it.”
The blast continued an upward trend since Tatis’ return from the stress reaction in his right femur, an injury that sidelined him for more than two months this season.
He returned on Sept. 2 without a minor-league rehab assignment, homered in seven of his last 16 games of the regular season and doesn’t look like he’s slowing down anytime soon.
Not after all the waiting he’s endured.
“I got a small taste of what is postseason baseball in the big leagues and I was looking forward to playing again in those situations, especially with fans in it,” Tatis said. “Before the game, all those memories came back, everything that I went through, how I bounced back, just the type of player that I am.
“Just doing that is just an amazing feeling of all the hard work and just all the training that I put out there with my body.”
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