Padres finally get promising injury update on Fernando Tatis Jr.’s weird situation

We still don't know when Tatis Jr. will return, but it does appear as though the Padres have avoided the doomsday scenario.

Eric Cole

Milwaukee Brewers v San Diego Padres / Denis Poroy/GettyImages

Of all the injuries that the San Diego Padres are dealing with at the moment, the one that befell Fernando Tatis Jr. remains the toughest to project or understand. After dealing with leg pain for a big chunk of the season, Tatis Jr. was finally diagnosed with a stress reaction in his femur. Given its rarity in baseball, there were some whispers that the injury could keep him out for much of the second half, if he came back at all.

This wasn't fearmongering, but an acknowledgement of the uncertainty with stress reactions. Sometimes they heal quickly and all is well, and sometimes they can take a long time or even progress to being fractures, especially if a guy tries to do too much too quickly during recovery.

Fortunately, it looks like the Padres may have dodged the worst-case scenario with Tatis Jr. According to Tatis Jr. himself, he is already making good progress in his return from the injury and it is likely that he won't miss nearly as much time as the team originally thought.

Padres News: San Diego fans get positive injury update on Tatis Jr.'s recovery

This is objectively good news on Tatis Jr. even though he still could not provide a timeline as to when he could return. He is already taking some dry swings and resting up while his thigh bone heals, and the fact he isn't waking up with pain anymore and is able to say with confidence that he won't be out for too long is a great sign.

San Diego is going to need Tatis Jr. if they are going to get back on track in the second half. The Padres having a 2-6 home stand going into the All-Star break blunted a lot of the momentum they had cultivated in the first half and we still don't know when Yu Darvish may return.

Even if/when Darvish returns and the Padres have an aggressive trade deadline, getting Tatis Jr. back is still of paramount importance to San Diego's chances this year, and this latest update is a great step in the right direction.

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Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.