SAN DIEGO -- The ball jumped off his barrel, but Fernando Tatis Jr. didn’t flip his bat. The Padres’ star right fielder merely dropped it and jogged toward first base, watching. Hoping, perhaps.
When the ball finally came down in the left-field seats at Petco Park, Tatis stretched both arms in the air and stared toward the sky. As ever, his body language was easy enough to read:
Finally.
Tatis’ last home run came on May 27 against Miami. His stretches of 98 plate appearances and 21 games without one were the longest of his career. Since his red-hot start to the season, Tatis has mostly slumped.
“Needed that,” he said afterward.
As did the Padres. Tatis’ three-run homer in the seventh inning put the finishing touches on a 5-1 victory over the Royals on Saturday afternoon.
Dylan Cease worked 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball, and a suddenly red-hot Xander Bogaerts pounded out two more hits. Then, Tatis left no doubt.
With two on and two outs in the seventh, Royals righty Taylor Clarke threw a knee-high fastball, just off the inside corner. A quality pitch. Tatis got his barrel to it and drove it a Statcast-projected 380 feet to left field -- 107.9 mph off the bat.
“That,” said Padres manager Mike Shildt, “was a big swing.”
It goes without saying that the Padres’ offense has another gear when Tatis is mashing at the top of the lineup. He began the season by doing exactly that -- so much so that his 14 homers are the most on the team, even though he hadn’t gone deep in 3 1/2 weeks.
“It was heavy,” Tatis said of that homerless drought. “Everybody knew it, I knew it, how long it was. I've just been grinding.”
Of course, one day earlier the Padres weren’t even sure they’d have Tatis in the lineup this weekend. He was plunked in the right wrist in the ninth inning of their series finale in Los Angeles, setting off all sorts of on-field fireworks.
Tatis was immediately sent for X-rays that night, which came back negative. Still, there was enough swelling and inflammation that the team ordered follow-up imaging on Friday, a CT scan and an MRI.
“Long morning at the hospital,” Tatis said (not to mention the fact that the team bus didn’t return from L.A. until the early hours of Friday morning anyway).
The Padres held their breath. Three hours before first pitch on Friday afternoon, Tatis strolled into the home clubhouse, no cast or wrap on his right hand and wrist. He stopped briefly at his locker, then walked straight to the trainers' room.
The night before, Manny Machado had said that the Dodgers would “need to set a little candle up” for Tatis tomorrow, and hope that everything comes back negative.” Sure enough, a few minutes after Tatis’ visit to the trainers’ room, Shildt announced those results.
“Candle worked,” he quipped.
On Saturday, Tatis said his hand and wrist still felt sore. He admitted he wasn’t sure what to expect when he was initially sent for imaging.
“For the spot it hit, I definitely dodged a bullet,” Tatis said. “It got the bones on my wrist. That’s a delicate area. … I was just happy I didn’t break any bones and happy I’m able to stay on the field. That’s my main concern.”
Tatis also drew a walk and made a sliding catch to rob Bobby Witt Jr. of a hit on Saturday. But his defense and his at-bat quality were never in question during his homerless drought.
In those 21 games, Tatis still reached base at a .383 clip. He still played an excellent right field. But his slugging percentage was only .289.
“It’s game-changing, it really is,” Cease said of Tatis’ power. “Either way, that’s why he’s so talented. Even when he’s not hitting home runs, he still can change the game. But yeah, that’s obviously massively game-changing.”
The very definition of it. The Padres clung to a 2-1 lead, on the strength of Cease’s effort. Shildt had allowed Cease to pitch into the seventh inning, even after his pitch count crept past 100. Cease’s 110 pitches were the most he had thrown in a game since his no-hitter last July.
As he walked off the mound, Cease received a standing ovation. He’d given the Padres’ bullpen a lead to work with. But there was no margin for error -- until that one big swing from Tatis.
A swing he’d been waiting on for nearly a month.