Fernando Tatis Jr. capped a late rally with a walk-off home run as the San Diego Padres beat the Cincinnati Reds 5-4 on June 10—an exclamation point after his first home run of the season came less than two weeks earlier.
When the Padres entered the bottom of the eighth inning still trailing 4-2, it looked like another unfinished inning. Then Jackson Merrill started the comeback with a double to left field, and the swing in momentum carried all the way to home plate.
Merrill scored after Gavin Sheets doubled—his hit came at right field—and Jase Bowen entered as a pinch runner for Sheets. Bowen scored after Samad Taylor hit a single, bringing the game level at 4-4 as San Diego went into the ninth.
Two outs later, Fernando Tatis Jr. took a pitch and left no crumbs—launching a walk-off home run. Teammates embraced him as the Padres claimed the 5-4 win at home.
The timing matters because this wasn’t the same Tatis that had been hard to find at the plate earlier in the season. He had been in a slump, with home runs coming slowly. Nearly two weeks earlier. Tatis finally ended his home run drought by hitting his first of the season against the Washington Nationals on May 30.
By June 10, the follow-up was a different kind of statement: not just a home run, but one that ended the game.
His offensive numbers in 2026 are beginning to look more familiar. The 27-year-old has hit to a .281 batting average and posted a .695 OPS this year. He has two home runs and 21 RBIs in 2026, with both homers arriving in the last week.
Those last-week results matter because they suggest the slow start is loosening. Compared with how he began the season, the improvement is described as massive—an opening window for what could come next for both Tatis and the Padres.
The broader picture is complicated by what the last few seasons have looked like. Tatis Jr. finished 2025 with 594 plate appearances across 155 games, totaling 159 hits, 25 home runs, 71 RBIs, 129 strikeouts, and an .814 OPS.
In 2024, he played 102 games and saw 398 plate appearances. A right quad injury limited his time, but he still hit .276 with an .833 OPS, launching 21 home runs.
Looking back further, 2021 is the season many fans still measure everything against. In that breakout year, Tatis Jr. was the NL home run leader with 42. He posted a .282 batting average, a .364 on-base percentage, and a .611 slugging percentage, along with 97 RBIs and 25 stolen bases. He finished third in NL MVP voting behind Bryce Harper and Juan Soto.
Two years later, the story included a reset. Tatis missed the 2022 season with a broken wrist and also served an 80-game league suspension for testing positive for Clostebol. a performance-enhancing substance. Tatis said he used it to treat ringworm, but the decision still raised questions about his career after 2021.
Even earlier milestones are part of the long arc of expectations. In his MLB debut in 2019. he hit .317/.379/.590 with 22 home runs. 61 runs. and 106 hits in 84 games. finishing third in NL Rookie of the Year behind Pete Alonso and Mike Soroka. In 2020, he followed with a .277/.366/.571 line, 17 home runs, and 45 RBIs.
When he returned in 2023 after the suspension and injury recovery, he moved to right field and won a Gold Glove Award. Offensively, the numbers weren’t the astonishing peak of 2021, but they were still solid: .257/.322/.449 with 25 home runs and 78 runs batted in in 141 major league games.
The question for 2026 isn’t whether Tatis can hit home runs—it’s whether the version of him that showed up in May and surged in the last week can sustain itself. A walk-off on June 10 came a little over a week after his first homer of the season on May 30. and the contrast between a slow start and those rapid follow-ups is now impossible to miss.
For one game at least, the slump didn’t win. The Reds ran into a final swing in the ninth inning—one that turned a 4-4 tie into a 5-4 win for the Padres, and left the stadium sounding like it had been waiting for that feeling.
Fernando Tatis Jr. San Diego Padres Cincinnati Reds walk-off home run MLB 2026 Jackson Merrill Gavin Sheets Samad Taylor Jase Bowen May 30 June 10
Walk-off hr fixes everything, I guess.
I swear I saw him slump like forever then boom one swing and everyone’s acting like he’s back. 5-4 sounds close too, Padres always make it stressful.
Wait so it was a walk-off, but also they said he had a first home run of the season less than two weeks earlier? So like he only hit twice in a month? Doesn’t that mean he was still bad lol. Also Reds pitching must’ve been awful like always.
Good for Tatis, but I don’t trust any numbers when it’s just one game. .281 and .695 OPS, cool cool, but he was probably just seeing the ball better that day. Still weird they’re saying “not the same Tatis” like he got replaced or something.