Fernando Tatis Doesn't Have a Home Run in 2026; Should Padres Be Worried?

Can you hear the drums, Fernando?

Better yet, can you hit a home run, Fernando?

The San Diego Padres are 25 games into the season and arguably their biggest star, Fernando Tatis Jr., has yet to hit a home run.

Granted, that has hardly hurt the Padres, who have popped a half game ahead of the rival Los Angeles Dodgers atop the NL West and have baseball’s second-best record at 17-8 (.680), and Tatis has contributed in other ways.

Still, there’s plenty of angst surrounding Tatis, who at any given moment can be one of baseball’s most exciting players or one of its most confounding players. Both can happen in the same game.

This is the deepest he’s gone into a season without homering.

The fan base probably will explode — figuratively, it’s hoped — when El Niño finally connects.

This weekend would be a great time for Tatis to go yard. The Padres are playing two games against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the thin air of Mexico City, which sits at 7,349 feet altitude and where baseballs will fly out of the ballpark. Maybe even for Tatis.

It’s indisputable that a Tatis home run puts a charge into a ballpark, especially when it happens at Petco Park. When Tatis gets ahold of one, he knows it’s gone. The fans know it’s gone. He might do a bat flip. He’ll gesture to his teammates in the dugout. He’ll ostensibly do his stutter-step rounding third base.

And all will be right with the world. There’s nothing quite like a Tatis blast that flies well more than 400 feet into the stands.

It’s just that it hasn’t happened yet this year, after 92 at-bats.

Tatis hit two home runs, including a grand slam, and drove in 11 runs for the Dominican Republic in his first appearance in the World Baseball Classic in March. But when he returned to the Padres, his power didn’t come with him.

Rookie manager Craig Stammen, who hasn’t been afraid to experiment with the lineup, had Tatis start at second base in consecutive games recently, to give days off to Xander Bogaerts and then Jake Cronenworth, and to see if it would jump-start Tatis’ offense.

“You know, maybe him concentrating on playing second base unlocks him at the plate and he stops thinking so much about it and just uses his natural talent to take over," Stammen said. "He’s getting a little frustrated, but I think we can tell that he’s getting a little frustrated that none of those hits are falling. Keep patting him on the back and say, ‘Hey, they’re eventually going to fall,’ and they will.”

That was more than two weeks ago. Tatis is hitting the ball hard, by most accounts, but the ball isn’t going over the fence and his power numbers are down.

Going into Saturday’s game, he’s slashing .250/.327/.293 this season, compared to .276/.353/.506 for his career.

He’s also leading the Padres with 28 strikeouts.

Tatis doesn’t have to hit home runs to help the Padres. He can still be a distraction every time he gets on base, and he leads the Friars with six stolen bases.

But a homer would be a nice proof of life for a guy who’s hit 152 of them in his career.

The Padres’ offense has been struggling overall, yet they’ve won six straight series. Closer Mason Miller leads MLB with nine saves and has thrown 33.2 scoreless innings to tie Cla Meredith’s club record set 20 years ago.

Three years ago when the Padres played the San Francisco Giants in Mexico City, Tatis bought a green, red, white and black sombrero when he and a cousin went on a boat ride on the Xochimilco Canals. The Padres began using it for home run celebrations the next day, when they hit six in a 16-11 win against San Francisco, including one by Tatis.

Five games later, back in San Diego, Tatis homered twice off Clayton Kershaw.

Besides the sombrero celebration, there were piñata parties in the clubhouse after wins.

But then the Padres slumped and the sombrero celebration disappeared.

Asked one night where the sombrero went, Tatis deadpanned: “It died.”

That’s a terrible thing to happen to a sombrero.

Perhaps Tatis can homer this weekend to honor the memory of a sombrero gone too soon.

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