Major League Baseball

Good times in MLB: Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. is back and better than ever

Published May. 24, 2021 7:32 a.m. ET

By Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Writer

Welcome to Good Times.

Every Monday, we focus on three things from the previous week in baseball — fans, managers, players, teams, cities, fan bases or mascots — for whom the times were good.

Let’s get right into it.

1. Fernando Tatis Jr.

It’s good to have the "Holy crap, did you see what Tatis did today?" text messages back. After he missed more than a week’s worth of games while on the COVID-19 injured list, our sweet-swinging, chain-rocking hero returned this week with an avalanche of home dingers for the Padres. His scalding stretch was capped off Sunday afternoon by a pair of taters, including as grand a slam as you’ll ever see.

It’s important to remember that the first month or so of the season wasn’t particularly fun for Tatis. He had his moments — remember how great that game was when he came back from injury against L.A.? — but was either struggling at the dish or hampered by his shoulder injury or both. It was weird, a man destined for greatness, playing well below his supersonic standards.

But if you give them enough time, shooting stars shine, and Tatis is back to his world-beating, fully-weaponized best. When he’s rolling, there’s no one on planet Earth — or anywhere else in the galaxy — who makes baseball look so easy. In the past four games since he came off the IL, Tatis is a mind-blowing 11-for-14 with four home runs.

The millisecond after he makes sweet contact on a homer is one of the best things in sports. The crowd turns its eyes away from Tatis and toward the ball, so he has a brief moment alone to contemplate how he’ll celebrate once the fans return their gaze to him. Usually, he’ll do a tasteful bat flip and swaggily jog his way around the bases.

But for his first of two homers Sunday, he mixed things up, with a delightfully "humble" bat drop. If the Tony LaRussas of the world want players to "put their heads down," then all I see here is compliance, your honor.

But it was Tatis' celebration after his second homer of the day that really caught my attention. Maybe this is something he has been doing for a while and I missed it — and if that’s the case, I apologize — but Tatis pulled out this little hop-skip-jump routine while rounding third base.

We’ve seen post-homer routines while rounding third before — Edwin Encarnacion dropping off his parrot, Miguel Cabrera's gratuitously wide turn — but nothing this overt and this ... dancy. Look, I’m sure there’s a line somewhere (moonwalking your way backward around all the bases or something), but this sure isn’t it.

El Niño is going to keep pushing the envelope of what baseball players are expected to be and what the culture of the game allows them to do.

Now that he’s back pulverizing baseballs into the San Diego sky, the guy pretty much gets to do whatever he feels like. Welcome back, my good dude.

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2. Davey Martinez

I know it looks like Davey Martinez is having a bad time in the following video clip — which would be antithetical to the ethos of this weekly baseball word dump — but trust me, he’s having fun, even if he doesn’t know it.

As you can see, Martinez went completely intercontinental ballistic missile during the Nationals ' 4-3 win over the Cubbies on Wednesday at Wrigley Field. He took issue with the umpires' calling Trea Turner out for running outside the baseline on his way to first — on a play that looked eerily similar to a well-known controversial call from the 2019 World Series that also involved Turner.

We don’t often see managers lose their cool like this anymore. Sure, we get our fair share of ejections, but ripping the base off its moorings and Gronk-spiking it into the grass? That’s throwback, for real.

Throwing stuff with little or no consequences can be incredibly therapeutic. We’ve all done it in a fit of anger. Just a quick hurl of a pillow or a baseball glove — or, in Billy Beane’s case, a chair — can do wonders for our mental state.

So, Martinez, with his team-issue mask draped around his chin, got his money’s worth. If you’re going to get the ol’ heave-ho from blue, you might as well give the crowd a show and fire up your squad in the process. Martinez might still be somewhat steamed from this incident, but in a year or so, he’ll watch the clip of himself going full shot put with first base and … he will have fun.

3. Tommy Hunter

Tommy Hunter has been a major leaguer for 14 years. He has been around so long that in his major-league debut in 2008, he faced Matt Stairs. The man has been on good teams, bad teams and whatever the 2020 Phillies were. He got to pitch in the 2010 World Series with Texas. He has been teammates with Eddie Guardado (born in 1970) and Mickey Moniak (born in 1998).

But until this week, Hunter had never collected a base knock in the bigs.

Joy, just pure joy.

When asked about his monumental single postgame, Hunter could barely contain himself. This is an uncontrollable smile if I’ve ever seen one.

Most of us, as fans, fall in love with the game as kids. Seeing a grown-ass man bopping around with the youthful glee of a tee-baller hits home in the best possible way. As a professional ballplayer, Hunter has seen it all, done it all and been through various ups and downs. To see that emotion after all this time is so genuinely heartwarming.

Imagine what he’ll do if he ever hits a homer.

Jake Mintz is the louder half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball analyst for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. You can follow him on Twitter at @Jake_Mintz.