Tatis Jr Sets Off Argument

Trust me, I know this isn't a local sports story, but with all that's been talked about regarding it the last few days, it's damn sure worth bringing up here. Monday night, in a game between the San Diego Padres and Texas Rangers, young star Fernando Tatis Jr smacked a grand slam, his second home run of the night. What makes this so controversial you ask? Two reasons. One the score was already 10-4 at that point (the home run made it 14-4 which turned out to be the final). The other was that it was done on a 3-0 pitch.

Scratching your head right? Yeah so was I when I read it. Not because of the fact that Tatis did it. Oh no. I was scratching my head because so many people ended up complaining about it.

Chris Woodward, a twelve year veteran in the Majors, who's now managing the Texas Rangers, went off on Tatis after the game Monday night. 

“There's a lot of unwritten rules that are constantly being challenged in today's game,” Woodward told reporters. “I didn't like it, personally. You're up by seven in the eighth inning; it's typically not a good time to swing 3–0. It's kind of the way we were all raised in the game. But, like I said, the norms are being challenged on a daily basis, so—just because I don't like it doesn't mean it's not right.” (Sports Illustrated).

Tatis also got a bit of a dirty look from his manager when he got back into the dugout after circling the bases on his home run trot.

Here's the thing that bothers me with all of this. It was Woodward complaining abut the unwritten rule about swinging on a 3-0 pitch. And doing it when your way ahead. I can kind of see where he's coming from, but its a stupid notion. To be fair, it's also been reported that Tatis missed a sign not to swing on the 3-0 pitch, so that is on him. He even admitted to it that its his fault for missing the sign.

At the same time, it always bothers me over stuff like this. If you don;'t want Tatis to swing, have your pitchers not leave a 92 MPH fastball right over the plate where he can swing at it. You don't want him to swing, don't give him anything he can hit. Also if you don't want it to get any further out of hand, have your pitchers make their pitches better and your defense play better. Don't get mad at Tatis for playing the game the way its supposed to be played.

The fact that this argument even happened is dumb, and its a dumb rule to be fighting over. It was a bad night for the Rangers on Monday and I think it was a case of Woodward just needed someone, or something, to vent his frustrations over getting blown out. Tatis has a very bright future in this game, and that skill set was on full display on Monday night, at least at the plate. He did what any good hitter would do in that situation and got called out for it by somebody who had sour grapes.