Supercharged Fernando Tatis

So Fernando Tatis was named the National League Player of the Week after hitting .375 with four home runs … and it’s a pretty good reminder that after the 2021 season, he looked like a dead lock future Hall of Famer — if he could just stay healthy.

As a reminder, Tatis in 2021 led the league with 42 home runs even though:

• He only played in 130 games.

• He played half of those games in the hitters’ dungeon that is Petco Park.

That’s no joke, by the way — Tatis hit .323/384/.686 on the road that year with 24 home runs in 65 games.

He hit .239/.345/.530 with 18 home runs at home.

At that moment, if you could choose the future of any ballplayer in the game, you’d probably have gone with the 22-year-old Fernando Tatis.

A lot happened after that. There was the weird motorcycle accident (when asked about the motorcycle accident, he said, “Which one?”) and then the long suspension for PED use, and then he was moved from shortstop to right field (where he was awesome) and then he got hurt again and kind of kicked around as a dull, semi-bored, sort-of All-Star last year.

In his first 21 games this year, though, the dynamic, electric, spectacular Fernando Tatis is back. He’s hitting .358/.436/.691 with eight homers, seven steals and it looks like he’s having a blast doing it. The man is supercharged. There’s no telling what this Fernando Tatis can do.

Joe’s Notebook is filled with web-only riffs. They will pop up whenever.