Padres: Fernando Tatis Jr. Shouldn’t Apologize for Being Awesome

The sport of Major League Baseball should be glorifying San Diego Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. today, but instead, he’s apologizing.

I’ll be honest, living on the east coast I fell asleep before the end of the San Diego Padres game Monday night feeling pretty good about the good guys coming away with the win.

And I could not believe what I woke up to this morning. When I opened up my phone and checked Twitter I saw people screaming about what happened at the end of the Padres game with Fernando Tatis Jr. hitting a grand slam.

So like I normally do, I went back and watched the end of the game and saw what unfolded.

On a 3-0 count with the Padres up 10-3 in the top of the eighth Tatis Jr. swung at a fastball down-and-away and blasted it out into the right-field bleachers – a beautiful swing.

With that home run, Tatis Jr. took over the lead for the most home runs in all of baseball with 11. He also leads the league in WAR at 1.8 and is the favorite to win the NL MVP.

That should have been what we’re talking about this morning.

But instead, the game of baseball is getting berated in the Twitterverse because of the unwritten rules of the game.

Chris Woodward, the manager of the Texas Rangers, apparently thought Tatis Jr. should have taken that 3-0 pitch because the Padres had a six-run lead late.

What’ crazy is earlier that night I had watched the Atlanta Braves score four runs in the ninth to walk-off the Nationals.

To think a six-run lead in the eighth means the game is over is ridiculous.

But Woodward took exception to it and had his pitcher throw at Manny Machado. Apparently the Rangers bullpen is so bad they couldn’t execute that either — and somehow after the umpires met following that pitch that “got away” there were no ejections or warnings.

And not only did Tatis’ own manager throw him under the bus — or you could argue he was trying to take the heat for him — but now we have Tatis apologizing for hitting a grand slam!

My jaw dropped to the floor when I saw this video because I honestly could not believe that in 2020 we have a player apologizing for doing his job extremely well. This is the world we live in right now.

Whatever Jayce Tingler‘s intentions were, he has to do a better job of standing up for his player there — so shame on him.

Shame on Woodward for taking exception to a player doing his job well and then purposely throwing at another player because Tatis did his job well.

And finally, shame on Major League Baseball for not coming to the defense of Tatis and not punishing Woodward for how he handled the matter.

I’m as old school of a baseball fan that you’ll find today, but this is absurd and a big black eye for the game of baseball.

Instead of praising one of the best players in the game today, we’re having to defend him for being great. That’s just sad.