Fernando Tatis Jr. spent 55 games waiting for a home run that should have felt inevitable. Instead, he got stuck in a strange early-season drought, reaching 207 at-bats in 2026 before finally leaving the yard for the first time on May 30. For a former 40-homer hitter, that made for the second-longest season-opening homer drought ever.
The odd part was that the power never really vanished. The ball was still coming off Tatis’ bat with force, and Padres hitting coach Steven Souza Jr. believed the problem was simpler than any grand theory about a lost swing.
“He was trying to pull everything and didn’t have the ability to stay inside [the ball] and drive it,” said the Padres hitting coach Steven Souza Jr. according to Times of San Diego.
That’s the heart of it: Tatis wasn’t lacking strength, he was getting too intent on using it. Fastballs, breaking balls, pitches on the outer half - it didn’t matter.
He was attacking them as if every pitch needed to be launched toward the Western Metal Supply Co. building. That pull-heavy approach pushed his barrel off the baseball and turned hard contact into empty contact.
The swing tweak that followed didn’t sound dramatic, but the results sure did. Once Tatis broke through, the homers started coming fast.
He crushed a 474-foot blast in Atlanta, which was the longest homer in the majors at the time. Then came a 465-foot shot in Arizona at 114.7 mph.
His 11th homer was another thunderbolt, a 421-foot, three-run drive against Houston that left the bat at 110.6 mph.
None of those were cheapies. None of them suggested a player scraping by on luck. They looked like the work of someone whose power was never gone, just misdirected.
Souza went even further, saying Tatis has the kind of natural hitting ability that could put him in .350 territory if that were the goal. That may sound a touch extravagant, but it does underline the same point: the challenge isn’t finding power in Tatis’ game. It’s keeping him from trying to manufacture too much of it.
That tendency showed up when he started swinging for the homer, something expectations can easily encourage. He’s paid like a superstar, marketed like a superstar and asked to produce like one. Once he stopped forcing the issue, the payoff came quickly.
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Padres Face Two Tough Roster Calls As Wild Card Pressure Builds
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Several options are already in the mix to take those spots, and each comes with a different kind of appeal. Samad Taylor has begun a rehab assignment after an injury, Miguel Andujar is working his way back from a wrist injury, and Ethan Salas remains a possible September addition, leaving the Padres with more possibility than certainty as they try to balance immediate need with the pressure of the standings. [Read more 🡒]