It’s been a rollercoaster ride for Padres fans the past week – first baseball returns, but now in San Diego it will do so without Fernando Tatis Jr.
The team’s young superstar fractured his left wrist and will miss at least three months, MLB.com reported, plus more if he needs surgery, which the team suggested is likely.
Tatis on Monday called the injury, according to MLB.com, “terrible.”
“I feel like everybody’s disappointed, especially me,” Tatis told the site as the Padres embarked upon their first complete day of Spring Training in Peoria. “I feel like we have a pretty good chance this year as a team, and I just want to be out there for my teammates.”
MLB.com noted he suffered the injury before he began preparing for the upcoming season, then felt pain. The origins are cloudy, but Tatis was in a minor motorcycle accident late last year, the site reported.
Tatis, in his third season last year, was a finalist for the National League MVP Award and batted .282 while leading the NL with 42 homers.
Yet the Padres’ $340 million man has been injury prone, with back problems in his rookie year and a fragile shoulder that tormented him most of last season.
A.J. Preller, the Padres’ president of baseball operations and general manager, chose to be optimistic about the likely surgery, telling MLB.com that Tatis has “obviously been a quick healer with some injuries in the past.”
New manager Bob Melvin, who will have to make his Padre debut without the team’s charismatic shortstop, nevertheless told MLB.com that he believes the organization has the pieces to fill the gap, whether with the versatile Jake Cronenworth or Ha-Seong Kim.