Why can't Tatis hit fastballs?
A mini-Padres blog before this morning's game, SDFC on shaky ground for the first time, SDSU throws a no-hitter and gains a potential star WR, Lakers players feuding with JJ Redick again, and more!
I was going to do a deep-dive blog post or podcast about Fernando Tatis Jr. today, but the San Diego Padres play the Pittsburgh Pirates in about two hours in a game that would undoubtedly make my content meaningless and silly if I tried to put out with any sort of assumptions about what will happen in that game…..so I’ll do it here instead.
Yesterday, I read the Letters to A.J. post as fast as I could after it published (as you all should do!) and it tied together some ideas that were already bouncing around inside of my head. Here it is so that you can read it yourself and then we’ll get back to me:
The most important points Dylan is making are about the types of contact the Padres hitters are (or are not) making and….this one is big….the revelation that Fernando Tatis Jr. has not yet pulled a ball. Not one. Dennis Lin made this same point in his mailbag that is linked below.
I spent a lot of last season studying the changes to Tatis’ batting stance, which is constantly changing, and you can see it changing even more this season. That’s fine, some guys will do that, but the thing that Tatis has really struggled with this season is catching up to 4-seam fastballs. I have no idea why.
First, I went and verified what my eyes were seeing…
YIKES. Also, verified. For whatever reason, Tatis can’t hit 4-seam fastballs right now. Pitchers are starting to catch onto it and they’re going to that pitch when they need a swing-and-miss from Tatis.
Tatis knows it, too. I think it was his final AB from yesterday’s game when he guessed fastball in a two-strike count and froze up when it was an 80mph breaking ball that went by him for strike three.
As for why Tatis can’t hit 4-seam fastballs after a pretty long track record of regularly crushing 4-seam fastballs, I can only wager a couple of guesses.
One, regular changes to his batting stance have left him unable to see the pitch well while also being comfortable in the box. This feels wrong because he’s still crushing sinkers.
I even went back to his World Baseball Classic metrics, assuming he was hitting 4-seam fastballs then, and found that this problem has existed for a while. Of all of his WBC hits, only one of them came on a pitch going faster than 91mph….and it was a sinker, not a 4-seamer.
That leads me to my second guess, which is that he spent the offseason focused on doing better against other pitches (offspeed, breaking, pitches that move, etc.) and assumed he’d stay locked in against the hard & straight stuff and now he has to knock the rust off of that particular skillset.
I guess we’ll see. “Guy who always hits straight fastballs is struggling to hit straight fastballs” feels like a blessing when you’re talking about hitting issues at the MLB level. It seems easily fixable, at least compared to other potential issues. Maybe he comes out and pulls a few in this morning’s game and we can stop worrying about it.
Now, onto the links…
San Diego Padres
Pivetta remains solid as string of unlucky breaks continues for San Diego - MLB.com
Nick Pivetta and Paul Skenes dueled on Tuesday night at PNC Park. And although Skenes, the Pirates’ superstar right-hander, came out victorious, it was hard to fault the Padres’ pitching staff. Even in a 7-1 defeat.
Pittsburgh took full advantage of some seeing-eye singles and some shaky Pades defense, tying this week’s series at a game apiece ahead of Wednesday’s finale.
Padres’ offense, Fernando Tatis Jr., catching questions and more: Mailbag, Part 2 - The Athletic
No one questions Tatis’ talent or desire to produce, but a lack of a consistent approach tends to lead to ruts like the one he currently occupies. Tatis entered Wednesday still searching for his first home run, his longest such drought to open a season. He has yet to pull a batted ball in the air.
New hitting coach Steven Souza Jr. praised Tatis throughout spring training. After studying video from 2025, he also made what sounded like an astute observation.
“I just thought that there was just some small things that you could do to just make him consistent, because he has these stretches,” Souza said last month. “He had them even last year, earlier in the year, where he’s otherworldly, and that’s who he is. And so it’s just about honing in the misses and, I think, giving him a template of where he needs to be day in and day out, instead of veering so far off.”
San Diego Padres Daily Farm Report: April 7 - MadFriars
Samad Taylor, in center field for the first time this year, connected on his first blast as a Chihuahua in the loss, with a 431-foot blast he crushed at 105.6 mph. The former Royal and Mariner hit 17 homers last season with Triple-A Tacoma. In nine games with the Chihuahuas, the speedy utilityman has an .844 OPS.
Joe Musgrove working through ‘slow and arduous process’ to get back pitching for Padres - San Diego Union-Tribune
Musgrove has been playing catch every other day (and at least once on successive days) for nearly two weeks.
There is no timetable for when he will get on a mound.
“Just trying to get some consistent feedback from the throwing,” he said over the weekend. “Right now, it’s throwing until we get to a point where I feel confident being able to go out and physically feel good enough to put something on the ball.”
It will be until at least May before he returns to the major leagues since he will need multiple bullpen sessions and multiple rehab starts.
San Diego State Aztecs
Aztecs get another playmaker on the field with backup QB’s move to wide receiver - San Diego Union-Tribune
Though he has been a quarterback virtually since he started playing football when he was 6 years old, Emanuel said it wasn’t that difficult to put it aside and change positions.
Emanuel actually broached the idea of changing positions last year with his father during the season. And who better to ask? A position switch certainly benefited Bert Emanuel Sr., who was a standout quarterback at Rice before playing eight years in the NFL at receiver.
Emanuel said his father told him not to rush things.
Five Aztecs pitchers combine for no-hitter as San Diego State beats UC Riverside 1-0 - San Diego Union-Tribune
San Diego State’s game Tuesday night against UC Riverside also provided a chance for five SDSU pitchers to make history. Those five — Jake Frohn, Carson Johnson, Issac Araiza, Bryce McKnight and Aidan Russell — combined on the 10th no-hitter in school history in a 1-0 victory at Tony Gwynn Stadium.
Odds & Ends
Away Days Part 4: A Bad Day in San Jose - Chromatic FC
There were times last season when San Diego FC fielded the youngest backline in league history, but there was a veteran goalkeeper helping assist those younger players. With McVey out on Saturday, SDFC tried to field a young backline with an even younger goalkeeper, and the lack of leadership and communication was evident. A young backline only works if there’s at least one veteran helping to communicate and ensuring everyone knows their place. On Saturday night in San Jose, the backline simply got shredded.
Lakers’ Redick downplays quarrel with Vanderbilt as ‘normal’ - ESPN
Lakers coach JJ Redick said a “confluence of things” led to a heated exchange between him and Lakers forward Jarred Vanderbilt in the second quarter of L.A.’s 123-87 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday.
Redick called timeout just 16 seconds into the second quarter to sub Vanderbilt out of the game, telling second-year guard Dalton Knecht to check in in his place. Vanderbilt, learning about the decision, approached Redick near the free throw line while the coach was preparing to diagram a play on a dry erase board and let him hear it.
Lakers guard Austin Reaves, dressed in street clothes after suffering a Grade 2 left oblique strain last week, and Lakers assistant coach Nate McMillan stepped in between Vanderbilt and Redick to create a barrier between the two.
Masters 2026: How long has it been since notable major winners claimed their most recent one? - Yahoo Sports
When Rory McIlroy won the 2025 Masters, he didn’t just claim the career Grand Slam. He also snapped an ugly major winless streak that stretched all the way back to the PGA Championship in 2014. That’s 10 major seasons, 39 in total (remember, there was no 2020 Open Championship) that McIlroy showed up as one of the favorites, then left empty-handed.
McIlroy’s streak was a long, cruel one, but certainly not the longest among today’s top challengers. For as much as many of today’s stars have won, their most recent majors are surprisingly far in the distance. (You can blame Scottie Scheffler and Brooks Koepka for a lot of that.) With only four opportunities a year to win, it’s easy to let the months between wins become years, and the years become decades. So let’s see who’s been waiting the longest to snap their own dubious streak …
Advances In Basebrawl Weaponry Are Being Made Every Day - Defector
It is a rare occasion when baseball players actually land any solid punches in a bench-clearing brawl, and this clip will be no different. No heavyweight blows connected cleanly in Tuesday’s bout between Braves starter Reynaldo Lopez and Angels outfielder Jorge Soler. It was pretty rowdy nonetheless. Keep an eye out for a flying tackle of Soler by Atlanta manager Walt Weiss.
‘Hard to not feel scammed’: World Cup fans say FIFA misled them with ticket allocations, seat maps - The Athletic
The controversy, which has led some fans to submit complaints or consider legal action, stems in part from FIFA’s messy mixing of its typical ticketing strategy with its desire to capitalize on the North American market. FIFA, like Olympics organizers and other soccer bodies, has always sold tickets by category. American sports fans, on the other hand, are accustomed to selecting and paying for specific seats, meaning they know exactly what they are buying.
For the 2026 World Cup, co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico, FIFA stuck with the category approach. But it charged North American prices — and then raised them. Fans, therefore, were asked to pay hundreds of dollars extra for a seat that could, in theory, be significantly better than one in a lower category but also could be in an adjacent section.
An Uzbek Chess Prodigy Is Laying Waste To The World’s Best Players - Defector
While Hikaru Nakamura was making an ignoble sort of chess history, Javokhir Sindarov yawned.
Just 12 moves into their fifth-round match at the 2026 Candidates Tournament, the 20-year-old had tied the world’s second-ranked player in quite the knot, forcing Nakamura to sit and think for over an hour. Nakamura, playing with the white pieces, attacked Sindarov with the Marshall Gambit, though the Uzbek player surprised the American by castling on the 12th move. Nakamura was down two pawns and clearly not prepared for Sindarov to counter him like this, so he thought for 67 minutes and 44 seconds, only to screw up. “He just thought one hour and played the wrong move,” Sindarov said afterward. “And after this I take this advantage and played very well, in my opinion.”