Fernando Tatis Jr. Went Turbo Mode
Major league baseball’s postseason derives its spine-tingling intrigue from many sources. There’s the tension — and inherent cruelty — of a months-long season coming down to a handful of games. Perhaps nothing in sports is better than a tightly-contested postseason game entering its final innings, the score so close and the stakes so high that it’s impossible to look away, while also leaving even the most devoted fans wondering if they can bear to watch. From these theatrics we often get epic performances and precise execution. Cam Schlittler dismantling the Red Sox with coiling curveballs and unfair fastballs in front of a bloodthirsty Yankee Stadium crowd, for instance. Grant Taylor’s dastardly 3-2 slider to strike out the potential tying run and end the eighth inning in Tuesday’s Game 1 against the Astros also comes to mind, as does the Braves’ note-perfect double play to squash the Phillies’ ninth-inning rally in their opening round first game.
But sometimes, well, sometimes a similar type of joy comes from the baseball equivalent of a windmill dunk.
The scene? Petco Park, Game 1 of the National League Wild Card Series between the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres. The Padres hold a comfortable 7-0 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning. The actor? Fernando Tatis Jr., arguably the most exhilarating player in the game when he’s hitting all his marks. Looking to extend the lead — or maybe just have a little fun — Tatis takes off from first base on a 2-1 pitch and is rewarded with a curveball in the dirt, a basestealer’s delight. Tatis not only beats the throw to second, it pings off his sliding leg and into no man’s land, dribbling slowly into shallow left field as the Friar Faithful slowly ascertain what’s about to happen. Tatis is going turbo mode.
Matthew is a Brooklyn-based writer who previously worked for GQ Magazine (where he profiled Andrew McCutchen and Francisco Lindor) and the New York Daily News (where he covered the Mets, Yankees, and other national baseball stories). Before that, he was writing and hosting the podcast at Lookout Landing, and was also a contributor at Baseball Prospectus and yes, FanGraphs. He goes by the full Matthew, and it's pronounced RAW-berson.
This was a spectacular read.
I agree with every aspect of the article. Here on the east coast it was late but I was determined to watch every game and I was rewarded with this play and this comment from the article struck a chord. “The lesson here? Chase wild, thrill-seeking endeavors over playing it safe.” In Michael Baumann’s article today on roster construction he correctly pointed out that doing something different, like taking the risk of rostering only 10 pitchers, is foreign to the stodgy, fearful mentality that permeates major league organizations. Hide behind what everybody else does so nobody sees what is actually happening is the mantra and Baumann’s article points that out very well. In this instance it is the action of the 3rd base coach that caught my eye. Tatis bold, exciting play caused the coach to show his hand. The left fielder is in a terrible position to make a throw. He is running hard, at a bad angle and the percentage of times he will make an accurate throw in this set of circumstances is small but the coach probably saw only the depth from which the throw would emanate and robotically threw up his hands. It epitomizes the performance of the high percentage of 3rd base coaches who are so afraid of having a runner thrown out at the plate that they stop twenty runners who would have scored easily because of that fear, not of being exposed of incompetence, but simply being seen. It was a meaningless play in a baseball game but It spoke volumes. Whether a 3rd base coach, a major league front office, or in life, don’t do something just because everybody else does it, DON’T be afraid to be seen!