SAN DIEGO — On Wednesday night — after the Padres had completed an 8-1 demolition of the Giants at Petco Park — Fernando Tatis Jr. stood at his locker and recounted a story from his childhood. If you were ever a baseball-obsessed 10-year-old kid, you could probably relate.
Tatis was living with his dad in a first-floor apartment in New York while Tatis Sr. was playing for the Mets. The apartment, Tatis recalled, had a wall that was just a bit taller than he was. He did what any baseball-obsessed kid would do. He took a ball, and …
“I used to throw it as high as I could to hit the wall,” Tatis said. “And I’d try to make a leaping jump. Obviously, I missed like 25 of them. So then I’ve got to jump over the wall and try to get the ball again. Yeah, it started from there.”
Sixteen years later, Tatis is a Platinum Glover — and he’s robbing home runs in the big leagues on a scarily routine basis.
On Wednesday, he went way up to rob Rafael Devers of a first-inning homer, setting the stage for a Padres victory that moved them one game back of the Dodgers in the National League West. It marked the third time in the last 18 games at Petco Park that Tatis has taken back a home run in right field.
“I was just hunting, all the way from the beginning,” Tatis said. “I knew if it was close to the wall, I had a chance. Just happy to make that catch for my starting pitcher.”
A word of advice: If you’re a visitor looking to hit a home run at Petco Park, you’d better clear the right-field wall by at least a few feet.
Otherwise, Tatis is probably going to catch it.
This wasn’t quite Tatis’ robbery of Mark Vientos on July 28 — where he reached well beyond the fence to bring it back. But this one might have unfolded the quickest, leaving Tatis little time to retreat. At the very moment he reached the wall, he went airborne and stretched his glove arm to its apex to bring back Devers’ drive.
“It really is an art form,” said manager Mike Shildt. “It’s timing as much as anything. And then it’s just the athleticism.”
Upon making the catch, Tatis fell to the ground on the warning track, where he sat, unassuming, for several moments with the ball in his glove. When he emerged and flipped it into his hand before throwing it to the infield, Petco Park erupted. Devers could only laugh.
It set the stage for an emphatic (and important) Padres victory. Gavin Sheets homered twice. Manny Machado and Ryan O’Hearn went deep as well. JP Sears pitched six innings of one-run ball. With the Dodgers’ concurrent loss in Colorado, San Diego closed the gap in the NL West standings — with a series between the two looming this weekend.
Despite some ups and downs at the plate, Tatis continues to play remarkable defense for the Padres, as he leads all right fielders with 10 outs above average. He won the Platinum Glove Award in right in his first full season as an outfielder in 2023. At the very least, he seems destined to win a second Gold Glove Award in ’25.
“You almost come to expect it out of him, it’s insane,” Padres reliever Jason Adam said last month, when Tatis robbed Josh Naylor and the Diamondbacks in early July — and that was two home run robberies ago.
Tatis followed Wednesday’s theft with a leadoff double in the bottom of the inning, then scored the game’s first run on O’Hearn’s two-out RBI single. The Padres had the lead for good. Sheets hit a solo home run in the second, then put the game out of reach with a three-run shot in the third, making it 6-0.
With homers from Machado (also in the third) and O’Hearn (in the seventh), the Padres’ four home runs marked a season high for them at Petco Park (and anywhere outside of Coors Field).
“It makes us really dangerous,” Sheets said of the power surge for a Padres team that generally scores its runs without the long ball. “I think we put a ton of pressure with our baserunning, with the way we make contact, drive the ball gap to gap. But I think the power’s contagious, too.”
Hit four out, take one back — usually a pretty solid recipe.
