Who flipped it better, Tatis or Joey Bats?
It’s a mirror image
Fernando Tatis Jr. isn't just the coolest, most jaw-dropping player in the Majors right now -- he's a full-on cultural event. He's Sunday night HBO, Marvel movies on opening night, a posterizing slam dunk and that feeling when the chorus kicks in all at once. He proved that with one ferocious bat flip on Thursday night in the Padres' must-win Game 2 of the Wild Card Series against the Cardinals.
It started in the bottom of the sixth. Trailing 6-2, the Padres were running out of outs in their magical season. Then Tatis came up with two on and proceeded to launch a home run into the left-field seats to cut the Cardinals' lead to 1. He screamed into his dugout to fire his teammates up. It worked: Manny Machado came up next and followed with the game-tying home run.
One inning later, Wil Myers gave the Padres a 7-6 lead with another home run and then Tatis strolled back to the plate. He worked the count full, and then Daniel Ponce de Leon tried to throw a fastball past the superstar.
Oh, no, Daniel. You don't do that against El Niño. Tatis hammered this one to the opposite field and, as it cleared the fence, Tatis gave his bat a tremendous flip. This thing has enough rotations that Statcast could probably generate its spin rate.
Let's take another look at that, shall we?
If it looks familiar, there's a reason for it. As soon as Tatis unleashed his bat, people were making comparisons to José Bautista's ferocious and instantly recognizable bat flip from the 2015 ALDS:
There may not have been any fans in the stadium for Tatis' dinger, but his bat flip felt as loud as 40,000 people screaming and stomping their feet.