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It’s been a long wait for the Padres and it probably feels even longer for Fernando Tatis Jr, but he’s nearly ready to get back into the action for Thursday’s matchup. He’s almost finished serving the 80-game suspension issued last season when he failed a drug test. And he’s been raring to go.
Taking out his frustrations
The 24-year-old superstar has been causing absolute mayhem in the farm league. He’s been taking out his frustrations with his whacking stick on the stitched leather down in El Paso. He hit three homeruns in a game just a few days ago.
It’s not as if he couldn’t also do it in the majors. In 2021 he went 4/5 with three homeruns in a game against the Diamondbacks, becoming the youngest Padres player ever to have a three-homerun game.
Tatis was the number one overall pick in many fantasy baseball drafts for the 2021 season. That’s his breakout year where he hit 42 homeruns, 97 RBIs, and also stole 25 bases in just 130 games.
Then he got in a motorcycle accident and broke his wrist before the 2022 season.
Tatis brings an insurmountable amount of it
He never made it back to play a single game last season before testing positive for Clostebol, a banned performance enhancing substance by the World Anti-Doping Agency as well as MLB.
In terms of statistical value, Tatis brings an insurmountable amount of it. He is more productive than any other player in the majors when he’s on his game. And as has already been established, he appears to be on it. That is assuming he brings some of that minor league magic with him.
Bogaerts seems right at home
So, the Padres just got a whole lot better. And it’s not as if they weren’t already pretty well-off without him.
Juan Soto was the home run derby champion just last season when he played for the Nationals. Xander Bogaerts seems right at home in San Diego after a great career in Boston, as he’s already gotten four knocks while batting a cool .362.
The Padres are currently only two and a half games back from the Diamondbacks. Every other team in the division except the surprising D-backs has a losing record in the early NL West rankings.
As far as those early season rankings go, things don’t usually shake out the way they’re supposed to this early in the baseball season anyway. So we’ll just use them as a gauge for how long it will take the Padres to pass them by.
