SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 13: Fernando Tatis Jr. #23 of the San Diego Padres takes batting practice before the game against the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park on September 13, 2024 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images)
Fernando Tatis Jr. hits 2-run homer, Michael King K’s 12 as Padres beat Braves 4-0 in playoff opener.
SAN DIEGO — Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a towering two-run homer on his first playoff swing in four years and Michael King struck out 12 in his first postseason start as the San Diego Padres beat rookie AJ Smith-Shawver and the Atlanta Braves 4-0 in Game 1 of their NL Wild Card Series on Tuesday night.
Tatis’ 415-foot shot landed in the second deck in left field at Petco Park and sent the towel-waving, sellout crowd of 47,647 into a frenzy. The 25-year-old star, who missed just more than 2 1/2 months this season with a stress reaction in his right thighbone, watched the ball fly away, tossed his bat aside, gestured toward the home dugout and did his signature stutter-step around third base.
Game 2 in the best-of-three playoff is Wednesday night. If the Padres win the series, they’ll 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 a 2022 NLDS.
King was brilliant in becoming the first pitcher to have 12 strikeouts with no runs and no walks allowed in his first career postseason start. He joined Kevin Brown and Sterling Hitchcock as the only Padres pitchers with double-digit strikeout games in playoff history. He allowed five hits and walked none.
King made his playoff debut with the New York Yankees in the AL playoff bubble in 2020 at eerily empty Petco Park, where the only “fans” were a few thousand cardboard cutouts. He pitched two innings in a loss in Game 3 in a Division Series that Tampa Bay won in five games.
The right-hander came over in the blockbuster trade that sent Juan Soto to the Yankees on Dec. 7.
The Padres were the only one of the four home teams to win Tuesday.
The Braves clinched a playoff berth by winning the second game of a makeup doubleheader against the New York Mets on Monday in Atlanta. They are without NL Cy Young Award favorite Chris Sale for this series. The left-hander was scratched from the late game Monday with spasms.
