{"id":675023,"date":"2026-05-31T00:18:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T00:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/675023\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T00:18:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T00:18:21","slug":"finally-fernando-tatis-jr-crushes-a-451-foot-drive-for-his-first-home-run-of-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/675023\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally! Fernando Tatis Jr. crushes a 451-foot drive for his first home run of the season"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Fernando Tatis Jr.<\/a> finally connected for his first home run of the season \u2014 and boy was it a blast.<\/p>\n

Tatis slugged a 451-foot solo shot to left field in the fifth inning against Washington on Saturday, although the San Diego Padres<\/a> went on to lose 9-4<\/a> to the Nationals. Tatis, who has five 20-homer seasons in his career and hit 42 in 2021, had not gone deep in 240 plate appearances before this game \u2014 the longest drought in the major leagues.<\/p>\n

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He then singled in the first inning and struck out in the third before his fifth-inning drive off Foster Griffin<\/a> gave San Diego<\/a> a 3-1 lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just knew right away,\u201d Tatis said. \u201cAbout (expletive) time.”<\/p>\n

Tatis flipped his bat with his left hand and received a joyous welcome from his San Diego teammates after rounding the bases. It was his first homer since Sept. 27 against Arizona<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very exciting for everybody,” manager Craig Stammen<\/a> said. “He\u2019s been carrying that burden. The team has been carrying that burden.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a while it looked like the Padres would be able to celebrate a victory as well. They led 3-1 before the Nationals scored six runs in the seventh.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere’s no off days over here man,” Tatis said. “This game will find a way how to still punish you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, it had to be a relief for Tatis to hit a homer, especially such a prodigious one. The wind was blowing in from left field at 10 mph on Saturday, but Tatis’ drive carried well into the seats in left, landing a few rows short<\/a> of the concourse.<\/p>\n

\u201cBet you he’ll sleep a little better tonight, knowing that he has a little \u2018one\u2019 on his numbers. He has a lot in his career, but it’s different,” teammate Xander Bogaerts<\/a> said. “Everyone knows what the deal is here. Everyone knows he has zero, so I think getting that kind of pressure off his back is nice.”<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Fernando Tatis Jr. finally connected for his first home run of the season \u2014 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[1017,146772,57684,4285,174936,363,196579,7155,2328,99,47416],"class_list":["post-675023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-arizona","tag-craig-stammen","tag-fernando-tatis-jr","tag-fifth-inning","tag-foster-griffin","tag-mlb","tag-plate-appearances","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports","tag-xander-bogaerts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}