LOS ANGELES — It’s no secret that Fernando Tatis Jr. is one of the most electric players in baseball. But lately, he’s showing that he might be one of the most electric players in postseason history.
After dropping Game 1 of the NLDS to the Dodgers, San Diego needed to set the tone of Game 2. On Saturday in Game 1, San Diego had jumped in front early with a big swing, but the Dodgers rallied back for a 7-5 victory, largely on the shoulders of Shohei Ohtani.
Seemingly undeterred, the Padres did the same on Sunday in Game 2, this time courtesy of Tatis. With boos raining down on him from the Dodger Stadium crowd, the outfielder quickly changed the mood in the park, taking a Jack Flaherty fastball and crushing a high, towering blast into the left-field bullpen, giving the Padres a quick 1-0 lead.
With that, Tatis took back the momentum, leading the charge as this rivalry ramped back up and Dodger Stadium went from lively to raucous in the Padres’ 10-2 victory.
“Wild,” Tatis said afterward of the environment in L.A. “Definitely wild out here. But at the same time, it’s a good environment for baseball, even though people get carried away a little bit with their emotions. But, I mean, it’s a good back-and-forth at the end of the day.”
It was more of the same in Tatis’ next at-bat, as he ripped a double into the left-center-field gap. So far this postseason, he’s 9-for-14 with three home runs, five RBI and a 2.151 OPS. His career 1.528 OPS in 36 postseason at-bats is the second-highest in MLB history, behind only that of former big-league outfielder Colby Rasmus.
And it wasn’t just on offense that Tatis made his presence known. The Platinum Glove Award winner reminded everyone that he is also one of the best defenders in the game in the fourth inning. First baseman Freddie Freeman laced a 111.4 mph ball into the right-field gap, sending Tatis into a full sprint before he leapt to rob Freeman of extra bases.
Following Tatis’ lead in putting on a show were his fellow outfielders, Jurickson Profar and Jackson Merrill. Profar’s impact started early on defense, with a home-run robbery — and fake out — of Mookie Betts in the first inning, which snatched the potential momentum away from the Dodgers as he snatched the ball away from their fans.
The 21-year-old Merrill continued his impressive rookie campaign with his second multi-hit game of this postseason, capped off by a two-run shot in the eighth that extended San Diego’s lead to 6-1.
“When guys can beat you in every different area of the game, that’s the way this game is played,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said postgame.
Really, Game 2 — which, for most of the contest, was closer than the final score would indicate — had two inflection points. The first came when Tatis was drilled by Flaherty in his third at-bat, leading off the sixth following his two hits. Profar and Manny Machaho took exception to the hit by pitch, leading to some words exchanged between them and the Dodgers’ starter.
“My boys had my back the entire time, and everybody saw it tonight,” Tatis said. “When he hit me, he just pumped me — he just gave me more energy. My boys gave me more energy. And I know from there, we are just gonna embrace that moment and just take that energy on our side and play baseball how we did tonight.”
Tatis got the last word, coming around to score on a single from Merrill.
The second key moment came during a lengthy on-field delay in the seventh inning after two baseballs were thrown at Profar by fans in the stands. As 20 security guards entered the field of play, more items, including beer, were thrown from the upper deck toward Tatis and Profar.
“I’ve never experienced anything like that,” said starter Yu Darvish, who waited out the more than 10-minute delay to complete his outing. Through seven innings of work on the night, Darvish shut down the Dodgers’ vaunted lineup, allowing just one run on three hits with two walks and three strikeouts. One of those strikeouts was against Ohtani, who went 0-for-3 against Darvish and 0-for-4 on Sunday night.
Once things finally began to settle on the field, Machado gathered his teammates and gave an impassioned speech in the dugout.
“The only way they’re going to beat us is if we lose control of ourselves, if we get beaten by our emotions,” Tatis said postgame of the message in the team huddle.
Offered Shildt: “To Manny’s credit, his leadership — he gets everybody, and he’s able to share how we want to compete in the dugout with our group. It was impressive. Just brings us even closer together. I love this team.”
It was clear from what came afterward that the veteran third baseman’s words were taken to heart. From that point, the Padres were a team looking to send a message that they would not be intimidated. They broke the game open by scoring six runs across the eighth and ninth innings, turning it into a blowout.
“At the end of the day, we understand that we’re on a mission, and stuff like that is going to happen,” Tatis said afterward. “We just come together as a group as quickly as possible, and we talked, and we just keep grinding.”
And after an emotional final three frames, who else would tell the Dodger Stadium crowd goodnight but the man who started it all?
Tatis capped the Padres’ three-run ninth by hitting a 401-foot, no-doubt homer into the right-field bleachers. The two-homer game gave him 14 home runs in his career at Dodger Stadium, his most anywhere outside of Petco Park.
Perhaps more importantly, his performance Sunday helped send the Padres back to San Diego with the NLDS tied 1-1.
“Just the energy in Dodger Stadium,” Tatis said when asked about his prowess at this ballpark. “The talent on the other side is through the roof, and ourselves [are] the same way.
“Every time you’re playing against the best, obviously you want to come out on top, and you definitely want to show who you really are.”
