Mark Whicker: It's early, but Padres’ Tatis, yesterday's footnote, in trophy contention

April 16, 2025

By Mark Whicker

Canadian Baseball Network

Among the trophies Fernando Tatis Jr. was supposed to be cramming into his attic by now was not the one for Comeback of the Year.

Not long ago he was hitting baseballs out of sight, 42 of them in 2021. Then he disappeared, too. It doesn’t take long for today’s sensation to become tomorrow’s footnote. Tatis didn’t play in 2022, missed 21 games the next year and 60 games last year, thanks to a shoulder problem. Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge took over baseball’s marquee.

They are still there, but Tatis is again sending out drives that might knock their letters off, or maybe into a lower row.

Sure, 9/10ths of the season is still unplayed, but Tatis spent the first 16 games hitting six home runs with 12 RBIs, and also stealing six bases. He was hitting .361 at that point with a .672 slugging percentage. He also was redefining the borders of right field, leaping at the fence to keep a ball in the premises, running and diving just as hard to apprehend singles. He is still 6-foot-5, still flamboyant, still with shoulders wide enough for an entire team to perch.

Since the San Diego Padres have beefed themselves up while Tatis was working his way back to being himself, everything he does is significant. San Diego won 14 of its first 17 games in a National League West that, conceivably, could provide the league playoffs with all three wild-card teams. The Giants jumped out to a 12-4 start and won two of three in Yankee Stadium. The Diamondbacks were 9-7, but they appear to have the kind of bullpen that can brave a long summer.

The Dodgers? After they won eight of their first eight games, someone asked manager Dave Roberts if the defending champs could really, truly win 162 games. “I’ll take the under,” Roberts said. On cue the Dodgers lost six of their next 10, and Blake Snell, one of their free agent baubles of the winter, is out with shoulder inflammation.

It might be a little early to wonder what you’ll be doing on June 9. In San Diego, that date is being circled, squared and embroidered on pillows. That will be the first meeting between the Padres and Dodgers, and it’s in Petco Park. For years this was only a unilateral rivalry, which is mathematically impossible anyway. Padres’ fans hated the Dodgers, and Dodgers’ fans loved the Padres, because they were a palate-cleanser that always landed on the schedule just in time to discontinue a slump.

That’s not true anymore, not after San Diego’s win over the Dodgers in the 2022 Division Series, and not after the Padres took a 2-1 Division Series lead last season. One loss away from another coastal collapse, the Dodgers used eight relievers in Game 4, beat up San Diego’s Dylan Cease, tied the series, and then won it back in Dodger Stadium. The Padres didn’t score in either loss, and Tatis went 0-for-8. That was galling enough for the Petco Park kingdom, but then the Dodgers went on a heater and won eight of their next nine and took the World Series.

The Dodgers’ scavenger hunt in this off-season was another sign of aggression. The Padres were relatively quiet during the winter, and they went into the season without starting pitchers Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove. But the great equalizer might be Tatis, and not just on the field either. Because Tatis is so exuberant, even after a third-inning play in mid-April, he has a chance to be the most scorned Dodger Stadium villain since Barry Bonds. But first he has to be Tatis again.

Tatis had played only 143 big-league games when the Padres decided to give him a 14-year contract for $340 million. In those games he had homered 39 times with 98 RBIs. He validated the Padres’ gamble with a league-leading 42 home runs in 2021. At that point his OPSs in his first three seasons were .969, .937 and .975.

He would not wear the jersey again until 2023. In the offseason, he hurt his wrist after a motorcycle accident, and he indicated later it wasn’t his only chopper ride of the winter.

If that didn’t convince the Padres that Tatis needed a time out, the next chapter did. Major League Baseball suspended Tatis for 80 games, having detected Clostebol, a banned substance, in a urine test. Tatis said he was using Clostebol for a skin infection, which his father said was caused by ringworm. He also knew his explanation would hang in the air like a diseased slider.

“I freaked out,” Tatis said, when he heard about the suspension. “That’s the truth. I need to do a way better job on what is going on inside my body.” And when told that his credibility wasn’t exactly on Walter Cronkite’s level at this point, he said, “I’ll give them a story to believe in again.”

The locals are sold. The average crowd at Petco so far is 42,108, second in the league to the Dodgers. This would be the third consecutive year San Diego has drawn at least 40,000 per game, a testament to the sports desert that the city has become but also to the Padres’ commitment.

Robert Suarez, the closer, had seven saves by Income Tax Day and had allowed three hits in eight innings. Michael King had manned the gap in the rotation by winning three of his four starts, and Nick Pivetta (Victoria, BC) had an 0.83 WHIP in his four starts.

Second-year manager Mike Shildt, senselessly fired by the Cardinals after the 2021 season, has insisted on the professionalism that the Padres hadn’t often shown, and has balanced it with his belief in the players. Last year Jackson Merrill was a 20-year-old rookie who had never played centre field before. He played it all year, hit .292, slugged .500 and deserved the Rookie of the Year award that Paul Skenes got.

This year, Merrill was hitting .378 with a 1.090 OPS in his first 10 games before a hamstring problem surfaced. In the interim, he signed a deceptively cheap nine-year extension for $135 million. Each year, Merrill will make an extra $1 million if he puts up 500 plate appearances just once, and if he makes the top five in MVP voting in any season, he converts the Padres’ 2035 option into his own option, for $21 million.

Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers, San Diego’s chief rival.

Still, Merrill is not slated to make more than $20 million in any season, and he’ll only be 32 when he’s eligible for free agency.

“I know there are contracts out there that are beyond absurd,” Merrill said. “You can’t just sign for $700 million and want everything to be perfect. But having a relationship with a real human being and a real team like I have here, you can’t beat that.”

Hmmm, $700 million. Was Merrill referencing Ohtani, who signed for that number before the 2024 season and has, indeed, found Dodger life to be pretty much perfect? Maybe. Can you still be a prodigy at age 26, despite mass imperfections, and complicate Ohtani’s paradise? The fact that Fernando Tatis Jr. aims to find out is a blessing for everyone.