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WASHINGTON — All he needed to do was to show bunt.
Fernando Tatis Jr. went 207 at-bats before hitting a 1-0 pitch from Nationals starter Foster Griffin for his first home run of the season on Saturday afternoon. Tatis faked a bunt on the first offering, then drilled the ball a Statcast-projected 451 feet to deep left field on a gusty afternoon at Nationals Park.
Tatis’ 55 homerless games to start the season are the second-most ever by a player who had previously hit 40-plus home runs in a season, behind only Carl Yastrzemski’s 57-game drought in 1972.
Tatis had hit 152 home runs in 2,808 career at-bats before Saturday’s game; around one in every 18.5 at-bats. At that rate, his expected 2026 total would be 11.
The Padres’ leadoff hitter had been trending in the right direction: he hit .480 in his last seven games. Tatis’ home run on Saturday was also his longest home run since Sept. 30, 2021, when he crushed a 467-foot blast.
“I think part of his process was not trying to hit a home run,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said pregame. “Being a baseball player, not a home run hitter, ‘I’m going to go out and play baseball.’ So far, we’ve seen a little freer version of Fernando at the plate, as a result, we’ve seen a lot of hits.”
San Diego entered play Saturday eight games over .500 despite Tatis’ power outage. He’s far from the only Padres anchor struggling. Manny Machado began the day with a .605 OPS, which was 148th out of 162 qualified hitters this season. Center fielder Jackson Merrill was just a tick ahead of Machado at .606.
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