Fernando Tatis Jr. turned Tuesday night at Citi Field into a personal highlight reel. He led off the game with a 452-foot bomb, robbed Francisco Lindor of a grand slam two innings later, then added a second homer in the fifth. San Diego walked away with a 5-2 win over the Mets, and Tatis walked away with maybe the best all-around game of his career.
Ball is starting to FLY off Nando’s bat. Whoa https://t.co/B4ykXR9vlU
The homer alone would've made the highlight shows. According to MLB.com, it left the bat at 113.2 mph and landed in the second deck in left field. But San Diego needed that run more than anyone knew yet, because Robbie Ray was about to load the bases with two outs in the second inning against a Mets lineup that had Lindor at the plate with a grand slam on his bat.
That's when Tatis went to the wall in right field, timed his jump perfectly, and pulled the ball back out of the stands before it could tie the game or hand New York the lead. He stood there for a beat afterward, ball in glove, like even he wasn't totally sure what just happened.
GRAND SLAM ROBBERY Fernando Tatis Jr. robs Francisco Lindor https://t.co/YzsuvSy0X6
Tatis called it the best defensive play of his career, and not because of the athleticism. "Not because of the play itself. Just because of the situation, where we're at," he said, per MLB.com. He even traced the instincts back to childhood, saying he used to hit balls off a wall in Queens as a kid and jump over it trying to rob himself. Full circle doesn't begin to cover it.
He wasn't done. Tatis added a two-run shot off Zac Thornton in the fifth for his 14th career two-homer game, tying him for second in franchise history. It capped an odd power arc for a guy who didn't hit his first homer of the season until May 30 — a real drought by his standards before this two-homer, one-robbery eruption.
Manny Machado chipped in a homer of his own late to help seal it, and Mason Miller closed the door with a 101 mph fastball nobody was touching in the ninth. But this game belonged to Tatis. When someone asked him afterward whether he'd rather hit homers or rob them, he didn't hesitate: "The robbery today was more fun than the two homers." Hard to argue with the guy who did both in the same night.