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Jeff PassonESPN
You are looking at the wrong thing.
That is understandable. A bat flies in the air, from end to end, enters the night in a fit of passion, and it inevitably catches every eye cast on it. There’s something magnetic about flipping the bat, and one Fernando Tatis Jr. releases Thursday night – the night he presented himself with his trademark vitality in Bezb.L’s postseason – he was zooming in with polarity.
After watching once or twice or 500 times – any number is acceptable, honestly – be sure to check the side view. And the first half-flip of the bat’s final journey or more 3½ revolution, pause it, slow it down, scrub it at quarter speed.
Look into the eyes of Fernando Tatis Jr.
Very enjoyable for someone, perfect Joi de Vivar It is practically contagious, there is another side of tatis. He rarely reveals himself. It’s not that he hides from it or divides it. No, it’s on, really. He saves when he needs it.
And when Tatis’ ‘San Diego Pedres’ was on the verge of scrapping the postseason on Thursday, its serious side came out – a brooding, an effect of intensity, flirting with anger. This bat flip was not an expression of joy as much as a flying billboard for the fellows he was looking at. This, he was saying, is what we should be.
Pedres’ 11-9 win over the St. Louis Cardinals in their 2 wild-card series explains not only what they need but what they are capable of as they prepare to win or go home. Game 3 Friday at 7 p.m. ET. Down two of his best starting pitchers due to injuries, work in bullpen games due to the ineffectiveness of his replacement, badass ball lana darling, Patrice – not in small part due to 21-year-old shortstop, went four runs in the sixth inning when Tatis turned the plate.
For more than three weeks, he found himself in a desperate recession. In the last 20 days of the season, Tatis hit .164 / .242 / .291, lost 125 points from his OPS and won the NL MVP award. He was frustrated, searching – and not helping to drop 10 men on base over the first game-do-part of his first post-season.
Giovanni Galigoz then threw five sliders in a row to Tattis, and he did not miss the fifth order. He climbed over the left-field wall, cutting 6-2 to make it 6-5. After a scuffle, Manny Machado tied the tie at Lag Legos. After the inning, Will Myers went home to put Pedres ahead with a run. Tatis came up again, this time facing Daniel Ponce de Leon. Like Gallegos, he was in love with a pitch. Tatis saw a fastball after a fastball: two inside, one low and two away, two on the plate to complete the count. The sixth was the best pitch of all: m 97 mph on the outside corner – killing on most hitters.
Tatis blasted him into the opposite field. Talent, passion, competitiveness, intensity: and together characteristic Walton described his teammate Trevor Rosenthal. Those are the next two that Thirty rarely shows, or at least he gets impressed by her ubiquitous smile and simple laughter. This is what makes her pale so deep. There was no mistake made, and no mistake was made. Tatis represents many great things about the modern baseball, including the desire to win.
He said, ‘We are in play. “The game didn’t happen. The job didn’t happen.”
As he watched – as the bat fooled into the air – San Diego’s dugout excited. Running home first woke up Pedres. Machado brought them alive. Myers felt compelled. Served as another memorial to Tatis. Myers’ second pick history.
Earlier in the postseason game, teammates did homework twice. It happened in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series. Fellow players were Babe Ruth and Le Ge Gehrig.
“To be in the record book with those people,” Tatis said, “you’re doing something right.”
Yes. That is a proper assessment. This looked like Pedres who looked like the second best team behind their other baseball rivals and which team they would face if they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers St. Louis on Friday. It was the Pedres team that earned the nickname Slam Diego for the prospect of advancing a home run full of bases. This is where the tatis nucleus plays and everything around it vibrates with energy.
Only once, Tatis said, has he raised his hand to the bat with such great propulsion? It happened during the Dominican Winter League, when he was playing for his hometown team Australas de Orient – and it was managed by his father, Fernando Tatis, the third baseman of the long-running league. Australia were permanently lost. Thirty families showed up and they started to win. In a late-season game, Dad asked his son to print. He made two attempts. On the third pitch, he smashed a ball over a left-field fence. Almost immediately, Tatis dropped the bat in an air granny-style – a two-way motion that sent it to such a motion that it had not yet landed.
He didn’t come with an X-ray. That’s why whatever elev height may be lacking on Thursday, it makes for spirit. It is immediately comparable to the flip of Jose Bautista’s infamous section series, and indeed, it deserves more certification than the intestinal reaction that puts Bautista on top of an unresolved mountain. Because Boutista’s flip is about as much as the flip, yes, what really makes him – what sets him apart – is his face. Bautista’s stale tungsten can melt. It is transient. One flash and then gone.
Tatis ‘length’ he excavated. He saw his teammates. He wanted to make sure everyone saw him. Gravity pulled the bat back to Earth. His appearance was bound by no such law. He imprinted himself on everyone wearing a Pedres uniform. His voice, his thoughts, everything that the world sees and pleases and uses as reasons why Tatis is so dear – that’s right, that’s what he wants, that’s what he needs a baseball ball. But this moment, this mien. It is impossible to forget.
That, they now know, is who Fernando Tatis Jr. is. They knew it before, but the full width of the baseball player is never clear until he reaches the postseason, sees the World Series trophy in sight and earns it. The cast went to the left field, went to the right field, went in search of a team ready to ride on its star, and it goes to Game 3, with every eye of a 21-year-old trained, the winner takes all who is really good at flipping it.
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