The Padres teammates of Fernando Tatis Jr. expressed their disappointment in his 80 game ban. There is a time and a place.
The manager of the Padres reached out to the player and said he was sorry.
Shortly before the start of San Diego's 10, Major League Baseball announced that the dynamic fan favorite whose 80 game ban for testing positive for a performance-enhancer, Clostebol, had been announced.
Before Saturday's game at Nationals Park, the first-year Padres skipper said he didn't want to discuss the suspension with other players.
"I don't know where and when that would potentially happen, so I'm not sure at this point."
Some other Padres players were critical in their comments after Friday's game, including pitcher Mike Clevinger, who talked about being "disappointed" in Tatis and hoped he realized "it's about more than just him right now."
The Padres will have a feared middle of the order this season, as evidenced by the fact that they have two of the top home run hitters in the National League. He broke his wrist in a motorcycle accident in the Dominican Republic in the middle of the year and didn't play in the year after.
The Padres are third in the race for one of the three NL wild-card berths, and they're expected to get a boost with the addition of Fernando Vina, who had surgery in March. San Diego had a record of 64-51 going into the game against Washington.
Padres general manager A.J. Preller boosted his roster ahead of the trade deadline, adding Josh Bell from the Nationals, Juan Soto and Brandon Drury from the Reds, and Josh Hader from the Brewers.
It will be easier for the team to deal with the absence of Tatis for the rest of the season.
"We like our team a lot," he said. We would still feel good about our team if someone got hurt. That is how you have to deal with the situation.
There was uncertainty about when Tatis would be able to play, and how that might affect the lineup, but that is no longer an issue.
"You didn't know how he was going to respond once he came back and started playing, so you didn't really know what to think," he said. It's six weeks until the end of the season, and there's some finality in what we know. We enjoy the group that we have.
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