Padres star Fernando Tatis, Jr. finished third in NL MVP voting last season at age 22, but he’s yet to play this season due to a fractured wrist that he suffered in the offseason.
The guesses on Tatis’ return have varied from early June (back in spring training, that was the optimistic timeline) to the All-Star break. Reports last month pegged late June as a possible goal, but Tatis hasn’t yet been able to head out on a rehab assignment.
Tuesday, the Padres revealed there’s been some bad news, even if it isn’t a disaster or anything that extreme. Tatis had a CT scan on the wrist and it “did not reveal the level of healing the Padres hoped,” according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. As a result, whatever timeline the Padres had in mind for Tatis will need to be pushed back.
San Diego general manager AJ Preller met with reporters and said Tatis is still not healthy enough to swing a bat. Preller did not have a firm timeline, but said the Padres are taking it “week-to-week” instead of “month to-month.”
On the bright side, the Padres have played really well without Tatis. They enter play Tuesday 38-24, good for a virtual tie atop the NL West with the Dodgers. If they did get back a fully functional Tatis sometime in July, it’ll virtually be like trading nothing for one of the best players in baseball.
Tatis, 23, hit .282/.364/.611 (165 OPS+) with 31 doubles, 42 homers, 97 RBI, 99 runs, 25 steals and 6.6 WAR in 130 games last season. This past spring, it was revealed Tatis fractured his wrist in a motorcycle accident and didn’t know it was broken until arriving at spring training. He had surgery to repair the fracture on March 16.
