Three Padres players who haven’t had the start we’d hoped for

Padres fans all hold their breath and hope Fernando Tatis Jr. is OK

This isn’t how it was supposed to go.

Watching Fernando Tatis Jr. collapse into a heap at home plate after taking a cut this week was enough to make me feel sick. Even if I weren’t a Padres fan, seeing the most exciting young player in the game suffer an injury that looked like the kind that ends seasons was just awful.

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Hopefully, it looked worse than it is. San Diego seems to think that’s the case as the club is reportedly ‘cautiously optimistic’ he’ll be back on the field sooner rather than later. For now, let’s all just hope and pray that’s the case because the Padres without El Niño aren’t the same team – period.

Even prior to the injury, though, Tatis Jr. hadn’t gotten locked in at the dish. Through five games at 18 at-bats, the Padres infielder batted just .167/.286/.333 to open the season. With Machado also struggling, that left a huge hole in the middle of the order. Thankfully, Eric Hosmer and Wil Myers have picked up the slack because otherwise, we could be looking at a team with just a win or two on the year.

Things haven’t gone as planned yet. But the season is literally just one week old. Hopefully by the end of the month, Tatis is back on the field and doing what he does best: bringing an unmatched swagger and energy to the diamond on a daily basis.