It’s safe to say that baseball has missed Fernando Tatis Jr. the past 10 days, and it didn’t take long for him to remind us why.
He just makes the game fun — even when he doesn’t mean to.
Tatis was back in the Padres’ lineup on Wednesday for the first time since May 9 after he tested positive for COVID-19. In his first plate appearance back against the Rockies, Tatis reached on a single to center. And with Eric Hosmer at the plate, Tatis looked to get aggressive on the base path.
He also showed off his flexibility with one of the more astonishing over-slide recoveries you’ll see on a stolen base.
F L E X I B L E pic.twitter.com/EnhNAyQ55Q
— Cut4 (@Cut4) May 19, 2021
As Tatis took off into second, the momentum from his feet-first slide took him beyond the bag. But somehow, Tatis managed to hold the bag while basically breaking out a full split to keep his foot on second.
I guess we know who stretched before the game.
Fernando Tatis Jr. status: BACK
And doing the splits!! pic.twitter.com/UhwQqiP0LA
— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) May 19, 2021
But really, flexibility aside, just being able to hold the bag there was impressive. You can see how Trevor Story was ready to apply the tag on Tatis if he came off.
Despite that objectively fun effort, the Padres would be unable to score Tatis as he’d get stranded on third.
Welcome back, though. Baseball definitely missed that energy.
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