Fernando Tatis Jr. plays a day after injury, runs Padres to win over Pirates

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on May 3, 2025

Published in Baseball

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PITTSBURGH — Fernando Tatis Jr. woke up and decided he was OK to play baseball.

A few hours later, he willed a victory.

Tatis led off Saturday’s ninth inning by creating a double out of a ground-ball to left field that he had no business turning into a double.

With one out, he stole third base.

With two outs, he ran home on a wild pitch that bounced barely past the left-handed batters box, just beating the tag of catcher Joey Bart for what would be the deciding run in a 2-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

All this a day after he put a scare into his team and all its fans when he took a fastball to the forearm that forced him from Friday night’s game.

The teams waited out rain showers before starting play for the second day in a row. Saturday’s game began 1 hour, 42 minutes late, a half-hour more tardy than Friday’s game.

The Padres made up some of that time by making Pirates starter Bailey Falter throw just 72 pitches over the first six innings.

They reached base just twice against the left-hander who entered the game with 5.93 ERA and trailed 1-0 before Manny Machado walked to the plate with one out in the seventh inning and tied the game.

Machado made Falter pay for a mistake, ripping a slider hung in the middle of the strike zone that Machado yanked down the left field line at 114.3 mph and into the section of bleachers beyond the wall.

Padres starter Randy Vásquez entered the game with the second-highest walk rate in the National League — an astonishing 15.6 — and paid for a walk in the second inning.

The only run he allowed was driven in by Oneil Cruz’s 118.4 mph single to center field, which drove in Alexander Canario from second. But the run was facilitated by Jared Triolo’s two-out walk, which moved Canario to second.

The Pirates would get six hits and walk five times against Vásquez, who left after five innings with his team down 1-0.

Twice, Vásquez escaped trouble after allowing a pair of singles in an inning.

That included a pair two-out singles around a passed ball in the third inning that amounted to nothing when Padres center fielder Brandon Lockridge fielded the second single, by Ke’Bryan Hayes, and threw out Enmanuel Valdez trying to score from second.

Two innings later, two singles and a walk loaded the bases with two outs before Vásquez struck out Canario.

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