Fernando Tatis Jr. hits 4th homer of 2024 playoffs

SAN DIEGO — A packed house of Padres fans at Petco Park chanted “Beat L.A.” at the top of their lungs during Game 3 of the National League Division Series on Tuesday night. Several players heeded that call during a huge 6-5 victory over the Dodgers to take a 2-1 series lead and be a win away from advancing to the next round.

But it was the latest dash of postseason magic from Fernando Tatis Jr. that put the exclamation point on the six-run second inning. Tatis hit another towering home run that sent the ballpark-record crowd of 47,744 fans into a frenzy.

“Obviously, Fernando is kind of putting it on his back right now. That’s something special to witness, to see,” shortstop Xander Bogaerts said.

San Diego had the lowest strikeout rate and highest contact rate in baseball during the regular season. By putting the ball in play in the bottom of the second, the Padres created some havoc that the Dodgers could not stop.

After the Dodgers took a 1-0 lead in the first inning, the Padres rallied with their first four runs coming against Walker Buehler in a variety of ways — starting with a smart baserunning play by Manny Machado to break up a would-be double play.

“Manny has one of the best IQs in the game, and we put it all in play together at the right moment,” Tatis said.

With two outs, Tatis lifted Buehler’s 0-2 fastball high and deep to left field. He spent several moments watching it fly a Statcast-projected 396 feet.

As the ball landed in the seats to make it a 6-1 game, Tatis chucked his bat and motioned toward the Padres’ dugout. Then he took his time rounding the bases with his signature hop-step before reaching third base.

Meanwhile, the crowd noise remained deafening.

“Definitely on the noise, that has to be up there,” Tatis said. “And, man, when I hit it, I don’t know, I just blacked out, started screaming at my dugout, just the energy through the roof, especially that type of inning that we built after two outs.

“It was just momentum and just definitely a beautiful finish at the end of that inning.”

After the inning, Buehler snapped inside the Dodgers’ dugout and threw his hat and a garbage can.

“I thought obviously the pitch to Tatis was a bad pitch,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But I think leading up to that, there were just balls that we just didn’t convert into outs. And it builds the stress in the inning.”

The big inning proved crucial when Los Angeles answered with four runs in the third inning to pull within a run.

“We come up one run short. And I gave up the homer to Tatis,” Buehler said. “There was a bunch of mayhem, and then I made a bad 0-2 pitch, and he kind of does what he does.”

In five games this postseason, Tatis is 10-for-18 (.556) with four homers. His 1.969 OPS would be the highest in a single postseason with a minimum of 20 plate appearances. He is tied with Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn (1998) for the most hits by a Padre in a five-game span in the postseason.

All of this comes after a challenging regular season. He played hurt for much of the first half, then missed 2 1/2 months with a stress reaction in his right femur. In 102 games, he batted .276 with an .832 OPS and 21 homers.

“When you play baseball like this in the postseason, you get all those memories back,” Tatis said. “You just feel grateful where you’re at. And just embracing every single moment and definitely not taking it for granted.”

For his postseason career, Tatis is 17-for-40 (.425) with six homers. The only players with more homers in their first 11 postseason games are Carlos Beltrán with eight while Daniel Murphy, B.J. Upton and Nomar Garciaparra each have seven. Tatis also has five homers lifetime vs. Buehler over the regular season and postseason combined.

“It’s been awesome, man,” Machado said of Tatis. “I’ve seen him enough to know he shines when he needs to, and what he’s doing at the plate has been unbelievable. … He doesn’t shy away from the moment. He rises above it.”