After 564 days out of action, Fernando Tatis Jr. strode to the plate in the first inning at Chase Field and fouled off the first pitch from Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander Ryne Nelson. The crowd of 16,734 reacted with a mixture of cheers and jeers.
He eventually struck out swinging on a 2-2 pitch and had butterflies.
“For sure, for sure,” Tatis said. “I just needed to get that first swing out of the way. OK, now we can get going.”
And so, the journey for the San Diego Padres new right-fielder began just as another ended for D-backs veteran left-hander Madison Bumgarner, designated for assignment after a dismal start to the 2023 season.
That’s the alpha and omega of baseball.
Tatis is returning from missing an entire season recovering from shoulder and wrist injuries and an 80-game suspension for testing positive this past Aug. 12 for having the drug Clostebol in his system.
Asked prior to the 7-5 Padre victory what he’d learned from the entire ordeal, Tatis said:
“This world goes around so many different ways. You just have to enjoy the time, enjoy the moment. I think I’ve matured. From every situation you learn, you take the best out of it. I feel like I’m a different person, a different player today than I was before all this happened.”
He went 0-for-5 with two strikeouts and a couple of line drives to the outfield. In moving from his accustomed shortstop to right field, he made one running catch in the corner and almost plowed into second baseman Jake Cronenworth as the two converged on a pop fly. Tatis dodged Cronenworth, who made the catch.
“I feel like I’m just learning the position,” Tatis said after the game. “There was no damage. I’ll just get better at it.”
In addition to the jeers from fans who see him as a cheater, Tatis is likely to feel heat from opponents. On his first two plate appearances, Nelson worked inside, forcing Tatis to dodge the pitches. Were they purpose pitches, or did they just happen?
“Nah, they were pounding in just trying to hit the inside corner,” he said. “It just happened.”
Tatis missed San Diego’s surprising run last year in the playoffs which included victories over the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers before losing to the Philadelphia Phillies in a five-game National League Championship Series.
He hadn’t played since Oct. 3, 2021. Bob Melvin was subsequently hired as manager, and Thursday night was the first time he had the chance to write Tatis’s name in the lineup for a meaningful game.
“We had a little thing in the clubhouse and welcomed him back,” Melvin said. “But it’s great to finally get to this point where he’s back in the lineup.”
The Padres signed Tatis to an unprecedented 14-year, $340 million contract just prior to the 2021 season. Tatis was 22 at the time and had played parts of only two big-league seasons. And then the trouble began.
He played the entire 2021 season with a right shoulder that kept popping in out of the socket. He missed 32 games but declined surgery in the offseason to correct the problem. During his routine physical when he arrived for spring training in 2022, X-rays revealed a fracture of his left wrist. Tatis claimed he had fallen off a motorcycle during the offseason in his native Dominican Republic, but the story didn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Tatis had surgery on the wrist and was projected to be out for three months. Just as he began a minor league rehab assignment, he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.
He subsequently had the shoulder surgery and a second surgery on the fractured wrist, proclaiming himself before the game Thursday as healthier now than he was during the 2020 COVID-shortened season, when he played 59 of the 60 games, plus six more in those expanded playoffs.
But in his short career Tatis has yet to play a full regular season, having already missed San Diego’s first 20 games because of the suspension. The Padres hope he can now start to provide the full value of his enormous contract.
Bumgarner, meanwhile, came to the end of the line in Arizona. He was so ineffective his record had dropped to 0-3 with 10.26 ERA in four starts. The D-backs were 10-5 when Bumgarner wasn’t on the mound, 1-3 when he was. At 32, he had an inability to adjust and add any new pitches despite attempts by the Arizona coaching staff.
Although his D-backs days are obviously over, Bumgarner may still have a future in the Major Leagues, Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said.
“If he can develop some pitches, land them and sequence some things, any left-hander who’s throwing in the mid-80s can play a long time in this game,” Lovullo said. “I saw Jamie Moyer pitch into his 40s [actually 49] and almost won a Cy Young Award doing that.”
A lot of this for both teams is all about the money. The D-backs signed Bumgarner as a free agent to a five-year, $85 million contract before the 2020 season. For a team that struggles financially, the deal had little payoff. Bumgarner was 15-32 with a 5.23 ERA in 69 starts and a far cry from the guy who buzzed through three championships with the San Francisco Giants, logging a 4-0 record, a 0.25 ERA and a save in the World Series.
The D-backs opted to eat what remains of the final $32 million left on his contract–$18 million for this season and $14 million for next season–rather than hope things would change for him on the mound.
Though they could ill afford it, managing general partner Ken Kendrick and president Derrick Hall gave Hazen their blessings and ate the money.
“Yeah, they asked me for my recommendations,” Hazen said, “and told me to do what I need to do to win baseball games.”
As for Tatis, he’s just glad to be back.
“I had fun,” he said. “I just embraced every single moment, and I embraced the fans. I was happy to be back out there with the boys. That jungle thrill.”
