The Electricity of Fernando Tatís Jr.
Opinion: Whether or not the Padres advance, a baseball prodigy has staked his claim to stardom in San Diego. He is exactly what the game needs.
Fernando Tatís Jr.’s swing hardly matches his lanky frame.
It is quick and violent, an unassuming source of elite exit velocity. Make a mistake to the Padres shortstop, and he will make you pay with a bat that comes barreling through the zone in the blink of an eye.
Just ask Cardinals pitchers Giovanny Gallegos and Daniel Ponce de Leon.
Both fell victim to Tatís Jr.’s vicious cuts on Thursday night, allowing a pair of home runs to the 21-year-old in critical moments of Game 2 in the Wild Card round. Gallegos was the first to get hammered, serving up a meatball slider with two San Diego runners on base in the sixth inning. Suddenly, a 6-2 St. Louis lead was cut to one. The next batter, Manny Machado, erased the advantage with a dinger of his own.
Wil Myers later gave the Padres the lead with a solo shot off Ponce de Leon before the Cardinals pitcher failed to sneak an outside fastball past Tatís Jr. The resulting two-run homer gave San Diego a comfy lead and spurred an October-worthy bat flip that was almost immediately emblazoned on a t-shirt. Myers would go deep again in the 11-9, series-knotting Padres win, but it was Tatís Jr. who stole the show.
“Tatís delivers electricity with a three-run shot,” broadcaster Tom Hart said of the first longball.
The call’s level of excitement fell short of the moment, but the word choice could not have been more fitting. There is no player in the game more electric than Tatís Jr. right now, and the Dominican wunderkind’s rapid ascension to stardom is exactly what baseball needs.
On the field, it’s not just Tatís Jr.’s bat that is quick. Nicknamed El Niño – a nod to his big league dad but also the complex weather patterns near the equator – Tatís Jr.’s play best resembles a cyclone. When he’s not hitting bombs, he’s flashing the leather. Or stealing bases. Or scoring on an infield popup.
Tatís Jr. does it all with the type of flair that makes baseball curmudgeons wag their finger, but more importantly, draws a younger generation to a game that has glacially embraced individuality. In addition to bat flips, he dances, goofs around and makes bold proclamations about wanting “the big cake.” The bilingual prodigy is a human highlight reel with the charisma and aesthetic to make him the most marketable player in The Show. Despite playing on the West Coast and being a major league sophomore, Tatís Jr. has become a national baseball media darling in a way that the sport’s best player has been unable or unwilling to. He is overtly fun in a way that so many of his peers often refuse to be.
In short, Tatís Jr. is everything baseball could possibly want from a budding superstar.
“He just really believes that he was born to be the best baseball player on the planet,” Padres teammates Kirby Yates said on MLB Network Radio. “He’s gung-ho to do that.”
Now on the playoff stage for the first time in his young career, the league has to hope that more casual fans are being exposed to Tatís Jr. His Padres will play the Cardinals in a do or die game on Friday, but a clear message has been sent regardless of whether the Dads’ season advances.
San Diego has someone special on its hands, and so does Major League Baseball.
Gary Phillips is a reporter, writer and editor for hire. He has written for The Athletic, Sporting News, USA Today Sports, Bleacher Report and Yankees Magazine, among others. He can be reached at garyhphillips@outlook.com.
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