Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a huge two-run homer on his first playoff at-bat in four years, and Michael King struck out 12 batters in his first postseason start, leading the San Diego Padres to a 4-0 victory over rookie AJ Smith-Shawver and the Atlanta Braves in Game 1 of their NL Wild Card Series on Tuesday night.
Tatis’ 415-foot home run in the first inning reached the second deck in left field at Petco Park, causing the excited crowd of 47,647 to go wild.
The 25-year-old star, who missed over 2 1/2 months this season due to a stress reaction in his right thigh, watched the ball soar, threw his bat aside, pointed towards the home dugout, and did his signature stutter step around third base.
“It’s beautiful energy. I love this type of situation,” Tatis said. “It definitely brings the best out of me. And just looking forward to way more experiences like this.” He mentioned he was looking for a fastball.
“I was going for it probably before he released the pitch. But looking for my fastball, he left it over the plate, and had definitely great results,” Tatis said. “I knew it was going to go out. I didn’t know it was going to land in the second deck just because how high it was.”
Game 2 in the best-of-three playoff series is on Wednesday night. If the Padres win the series, they will face their biggest rivals, the NL West champion Los Angeles Dodgers, in the National League Division Series. The Padres eliminated the 111-win Dodgers in the 2022 NLDS.
King was outstanding, becoming the first pitcher to have 12 strikeouts with no runs or walks allowed in his first-ever postseason start. He gave up five hits and joined Kevin Brown and Sterling Hitchcock as the only Padres pitchers with double-digit strikeouts in a playoff game.
At 2 hours and 9 minutes, this game was the fastest postseason game since Greg Maddux and the Braves defeated the Dodgers in 2:08 during the 1996 NL Division Series.
“I think I dreamed of a perfect game instead of a few hits that I gave up,” said King, who was traded to the Padres in the big deal that sent Juan Soto to the New York Yankees last December. “But I mean, to get up 1-0 in a three-game series is huge.
That was the goal and we accomplished that. We’ve got our horse Joe (Musgrove) tomorrow and I’ve got a lot of confidence in us.”
King made his playoff debut with the Yankees in the AL playoff bubble in 2020 at an eerily quiet Petco Park, where the only “fans” were a few thousand cardboard cutouts. He pitched two innings in a Game 3 loss during a Division Series that Tampa Bay won in five games.
Getting the quick 2-0 lead “made it so I could really attack on my fastball and stay ahead in the counts and really put the pressure on,” King said. “Feeling the crowd noise, knowing how big postseason games are, it all played into my mentality throughout the whole game.”
The Braves secured a playoff spot by winning the second game of a doubleheader against the New York Mets on Monday in Atlanta. However, they are missing NL Cy Young Award favorite Chris Sale for this series. The left-handed pitcher was pulled from the late game on Monday due to back spasms.
Atlanta played 27 innings on different coasts in just over 24 hours.
Tatis homered on a 94 mph fastball from the 21-year-old Smith-Shawver, one of the Braves’ top prospects. This was his first playoff start and just his second game this season.
Luis Arraez was on base with a leadoff single. Arraez, who was traded from Miami in early May, became the first player since the 1800s to win batting titles with three different teams.
Tatis experienced his first postseason game with fans in the stands. His first playoffs were in 2020 after the season was shortened due to the pandemic.
He missed San Diego’s run to the 2022 National League Championship Series after receiving an 80-game suspension from MLB for using performance-enhancing drugs that August.
His home run happened on the anniversary of when he hit two homers in a 2020 Wild Card Series game against the St. Louis Cardinals. Mike Shildt, in his first season managing the Padres, was the manager for St. Louis at that time.
Kyle Higashioka hit a homer in the eighth inning and had a sacrifice fly in the second. He is 3 for 30 against Atlanta, with three of those hits being home runs.
San Diego was the only one of the four home teams to win its playoff opener on Tuesday. Smith-Shawver gave up three runs and four hits in 1 1/3 innings.
Braves manager Brian Snitker mentioned that Smith-Shawver didn’t find out he was starting until the manager called him on Tuesday morning.
“It wasn’t because of who we started that we didn’t win this game,” Snitker said. “We couldn’t get anything going offensively.”
Smith-Shawver said, “There are obviously nerves, but also it is where you want to be throwing and sometimes it doesn’t work out your way. But I don’t think nerves were the issue today.”
