The MLB world erupted when the news broke that the San Diego Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr was going to be suspended for the next 80 games. This penalty was almost immediately dished out when the league determined that he had tested positive for a performance enhancing substance.
It’s been an incredibly rough season for Tatis to say the least. He hasn’t played a single game throughout the entire 2022 season. This also means he won’t suit up at all this year. This started when he suffered a broken wrist during the offseason. It was the cause of a motorcycle accident. This entire time he’s been working his way back to get on the field and help his team again. This all comes right after he inked a 14-year, $340 megadeal with the Padres back in February of 2021.
According to one of Tatis’ best friends on the Padres roster, outfielder Jurickson Profar, Tatis is absolutely devastated over the suspension. He said that he is completely broken up about the ruling and that he feels horrible for his actions. Profar wasn’t the only one set to speak with Fernando Tatis in the organization. The organizations president of baseball operations and general manager, AJ Preller, is set to have a face-to-face meeting with him. It’s expected to happen over the weekend. He is also set to meet with their chairman Peter Seidler during that same time frame.
The situation has seen him face a lot of criticism, and it seems to be getting louder as the days pass by. This criticism is even coming from teammates. The same teammates that he’s yet to fully address as a team. Yes, a few players have spoken to him on the roster, but he’s yet to approach them altogether.
Heavy Criticism Has Faced Fernando Tatis
Another outfielder by the name of Wil Myers said, “We just wanna hear him be genuine and honest in here. What happens in here stays in here. As far as the trust being broken, I think that’s obviously true in the respect of what happened. But that’s not to say that from a teammate perspective that can’t be won back.” Fellow teammate Joe Musgrove sort of echoed those sentiments. He said, “A lot of things between now and then will dictate that. He’s out teammate still, and he’s gonna be in our clubhouse, so we’re gonna have to find a way to get on the same page and get past this. I don’t know what that’s gonna look like yet, but as the time comes it’ll be a little clearer.”
Before we wrap this up, we have to cover what his supposed reason for taking an enhancing substance. The MLB Players Association released a statement on Tatis’ behalf when the news broke. Tatis said, “It turns out that I inadvertently took a medication to treat ringworm that contained Clostebol. I should have used the resources available to me in order to ensure that no banned substances were in what I took. I failed to do so.” Whether or not you want to believe him is entirely up to each individual. Some reporters and other players aren’t buying it. They believe that he was using it to become the player that he is right now. Others trust his story and know that it wasn’t any substance that was making him one of the league’s premier players.
