MELVIN: TATIS NOT HITTING YET ‘LAST THING I’M WORRIED ABOUT’
Fernando Tatis Jr. is the player who returns thunderously.
After 34 games on the injured list early in his rookie season, he walked twice and singled in his first game back. The next night, he singled twice and homered.
In his first game following three IL stints in 2021, he went a combined 9-for-15 with four home runs and three doubles.
That is not what has happened this spring, as Tatis works back from a full season off due to injury and suspension.
A fourth straight 0-for-3 game on Thursday against the Guardians left Tatis hitless in 16 at-bats. He did draw his third walk of the spring, however.
Tatis was extremely patient in his first two games, drawing two walks while going 0-for-4. He has more recently been a bit jumpy, chasing more bad pitches, as he sometimes does when he hasn’t had a hit in a while. He has struck out five times in 19 plate appearances and frequently popped up.
“That’s what happens,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said Thursday morning. “… I was really impressed by the fact that he was taking a lot of pitches, and when you don’t see results, you get a little more aggressive. That’s just natural. He hasn’t played in a while. He’s going to hit. I’m sure he’s a little frustrated right now, and he’s doing a lot of work. But the last thing I’m worried about is Fernando Tatis hitting or not.”
Tatis last played in a major league game on Oct. 3, 2021.
He suffered a fractured scaphoid bone in his left wrist in December of that year when he fell off a motorcycle, had surgery in April 2021 and played in four games in Double-A on a rehab assignment before his PED suspension was announced on Aug. 12. He had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his shoulder in September and a second wrist surgery in October.
He began baseball activities in January. Thursday was his first time this spring playing a second day in a row.
“Look, he’s had three surgeries,” Melvin said. “To say that he’s right away, when the season starts, going to be that 1.100 OPS guy or whatever, I think that’s probably expecting a little too much. But I’m going to temper that with the fact that he is a one-of-a-kind player. … (But) I don’t know how you could expect anybody being as out as long as he has and having those types of surgeries to just hit the ground running like he never stopped playing.”
The ace
The Mets’ Jose Quintana was expected to start Colombia’s WBC opener Saturday against Mexico but withdrew with a stress fracture in a rib. That prompted Colombia to move up Nabil Crismatt one day.
“He thought he was an ace anyway,” Melvin quipped. “Which is what you love about Nabil.”
Indeed, confidence is perhaps the primary trait that enables Crismatt to not
only pitch in the majors with a 91 mph fastball but to post a 2.94 ERA over 671⁄3 innings last season.
Crismatt is expected to be a long-relief option for the Padres again this season. However, he harbors starting aspirations.
“I hope at one point this year I can get the opportunity again to be a starter,” said Crismatt, who started in the minor leagues. “I just love to start. I feel like you have a better routine.”
The WBC gives him the opportunity to do so now, and it might not hurt for what he’d like to do ultimately.
“I think it will be great for him,” Melvin said. “Who knows down the road? He gives us such flexibility. … He has the ability to do just about anything, and there’s very few guys that can do it like that.”
Musgrove update Joe Musgrove
played catch for a second straight day.
The right-hander, who was injured Feb. 27 when a kettlebell fell on his toe, is perhaps a bit ahead of schedule. But there remains no way to know whether his goal of not missing a start can come to fruition.
“Originally, I would have told you I thought it was gonna be a month,” Melvin said. “Where he is right now, (the timetable) is still kind of all over. I don’t want to get everybody too fired up about the fact that he may miss one start or two starts. I don’t know. (When) we get him on a mound I think then we’ll have a better idea.”
Musgrove never stopped throwing weighted balls against a wall up to 150 times daily to keep his arm strength up. He also immediately changed to a diet rich in iron and other minerals and began spending as many as four hours a day in a hyperbaric chamber to promote healing of the bone.
Soto looks good
There was a high level of optimism Juan Soto would be on a plane to Miami by today and that he will be able to participate in the Dominican Republic’s WBC opener the next day. And that was before he played left field and batted five times in a “B” game Thursday afternoon.
Soto walked twice and went 0-for-3. He stole second and then scored from third on a groundout following his final time at that plate. In his first at-bat, which ended with a strikeout against the Guardians’ Shane Bieber, Soto narrowly missed a home run when a deep drive to right sailed foul.
Soto continued to take batting practice as he dealt with tightness in his left calf, but Thursday marked his first game action since March 2. He has maintained he would not have stopped playing if this were the regular season, but the Padres held him back from traveling to Florida with fellow Dominicans Nelson Cruz, Luis Garcia and Manny Machado on Monday.
“This time of spring,” Melvin said, “this is the time you try to be as conservative as you can, especially with a guy like him.”