San Diego Padres at Atlanta Braves

Remember all that time we spent wondering when Fernando Tatis Jr. would hit his first home run? Feels like ancient history. Tatis is hitting homers in bunches now. And on Tuesday night, he hit the longest home run in the Majors this season -- a Statcast-projected 474 feet to the very back of the left-center-field grandstand at Truist Park. In the eighth inning of the Padres’ 8-3 victory over the Braves, Tatis got a hanging slider from Braves reliever JR Ritchie and demolished it for his third home run in the past four games and his eighth of the season. “Beautiful to feel that, to see that off the bat,” Tatis said. It was a no-doubter, and at 474 feet, it was one foot longer than a home run last month by Braves catcher Drake Baldwin \-\- who, from behind the plate, might’ve had the best view of Tatis’ blast. By now, Tatis’ early-season struggles are a thing of the past. He’s been arguably the Padres’ best hitter for most of the past two months, even if his power hadn’t entirely come around. It’s clearly still in there. The ball came off Tatis' bat at 111.0 mph, with 82.2 mph bat speed. It also marked the second-longest homer of Tatis’ career, three feet behind his 477-foot blast at Coors Field on June 16, 2021. “This one feels better,” he said. “The other one was more Colorado air.”