Lincoln Zdunich
Fernando Tatis Jr. spent the beginning of the 2026 season swinging an ice-cold bat. To put it kindly, he looked terrible. Through April, Tatis batted .250 and struggled to pull the ball in the air. He looked like a shell of his former self. Without his bat, the San Diego Padres‘ offense was struggling and Tatis was dropped in the lineup.
Then, in the month of May, he started to heat up. Tatis has batted .290/.371/.333 in 25 games this month, a marked improvement from the previous two months. He’s been even better in his last seven games, batting .520/.586/.680 with three walks. It’s been an incredible turnaround to an otherwise tough start.
But his lack of home runs have come from being unable to pull balls in the air. Tatis has pulled a career-low 26.4 percent of balls and hit a career-worst 45.9 percent of balls in the air. His contact hasn’t exactly been conducive to driving balls out of the yard, to say the least.
Still, the elusive first homer couldn’t be found … until Saturday. Against Washington Nationals‘ starter Foster Griffin, Tatis launched the third homer of the day a Statcast-projected 451 feet. It was a four-seam fastball middle-in: a pitch that the slugger has mashed in the past. The hope now for the Padres is that the homers will come in bunches, though that remains to be seen.
