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It’s the next pitch I can’t get out of my head. Yamamoto went to his curve, but it hung, and in doing so it locked up Tatis. The pitch should have been hit very hard and very far; on breaking balls in the strike zone this year, Tatis hit .323 and slugged .604. Instead, it become a called strike for 1-1. Tatis seem geared up something hard and up, and you can see that when the pitch breaks downward, he stops his swing, only to see the pitch fall in for a strike. It was the only pitch in the strike zone Tatis saw in the at-bat, the only chance he would have to do damage, and he took it. Three pitches later, Tatis rolled over on a 3-1 slider below the zone and grounded into a double play. The Padres would not have another batter reach base in the 2024 season.
I don’t know what happens if Tatis swings at the pitch. It’s baseball. Maybe he swings through it, maybe he fouls it off. Maybe he hits into the same double play. When I think about how good a hitter he his, how well he does on just those pitches, though, I can’t help but think his take was the biggest moment of the game, the last great chance the Padres had to win this series. Yamamoto got away with one.
