The home run Padres rookie Fernando Tatis Jr. hit in St. Louis was no ordinary home run.
Tatis slammed a high inside fastball clocked at 97 mph.
Sometimes, hitters just guess right. Sometimes, they turn on inside fastballs that aren’t as hard to reach, as when former Padres prospect Rymer Liriano pulled a thigh-high, 92-mph serving into the Western Metal building five years ago. Ben Davis, another Pads prospect, once pulled an inside fastball for a homer, some 400 feet, in Mission Valley.
This wasn’t one of those.
Pure bat speed, not an anticipatory start or suspect pitch, enabled the lanky Tatis to get his barrel to and through the ball Friday in Busch Stadium.