Tatis day to day after tweaking shoulder

June 20th, 2021

SAN DIEGO -- Shortstop exited the Padres’ 7-5 victory over Reds on Saturday after tweaking his left shoulder, but he appears to have avoided any significant damage, manager Jayce Tingler said afterward.

Tatis is day to day, and Tingler noted that his star shortstop lobbied to remain in the game at Petco Park.

“When he dove and hit the ground, he was in full extension and tweaked that shoulder a little bit,” Tingler said. “He was petitioning to stay in. He’s like, ‘I can play through this; let’s get through the inning.’ I just thought, at the end of the day, be precautionary with it.”

Tatis missed 10 days earlier this season with a partially dislocated left shoulder, and he also dealt with some left shoulder trouble during Spring Training. At the time, the Padres noted the possibility of a recurrence of the injury, but Tatis hadn't experienced any shoulder trouble since.

Until Saturday.

Tatis dove for Tyler Naquin’s ground single and landed awkwardly, his left arm hitting the ground and rolling under his body. Tatis was evaluated for a brief moment by a team trainer before walking off the field under his own power.

“We’ll certainly be day to day, and we’ll kind of see where we’re at,” Tingler said. “A lot of times you find out a little bit more after you go to bed, wake up the next day and see where we’re at. But we feel like we’re in a fairly decent position. The trainers think it’s nowhere near where it’s been earlier on in the year.”

Needless to say, the Padres can ill afford to be without their superstar shortstop. In 54 games this season, Tatis has a slash line of .285/.364/.675 with 22 homers and 13 steals.

On Saturday, however, it was Tatis’ replacement, who provided the heroics, with a go-ahead two-run homer in the eighth inning that stayed fair just inside the left-field foul pole.