Fernando Tatis Jr.'s walk-off homer gives Padres series win over Reds

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Jun 10, 2026

Published in Baseball

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SAN DIEGO — Once he realized the game had ended at his hands, Fernando Tatis Jr. raised his arms to his sides as if they were wings and fairly glided around the bases.

“That’s what it felt like,” he said.

The San Diego Padres’ erstwhile slugger, in some ways still their best hitter and in one particular way among their most disappointing hitters this season, wasn’t the only one feeling that way when his 106 mph line drive skipped off the top of the left-field wall and into the seats for a walk-off home run in the ninth inning.

The 5-4 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday afternoon felt outsized.

“Today was a big day,” manager Craig Stammen said. “To end the homestand even (at 3-3) instead of 2-4 is huge. You don’t want to say one game matters a ton, but just the overall perception of how the team is playing, an extra win always helps.”

The Padres fought back from a two-run deficit to tie the game in the eighth and then avoided a fifth consecutive series loss when Tatis hit his second home run of the season, this one off Chase Petty, a right-hander who had been recalled Wednesday morning to replenish the Reds’ depleted bullpen.

The teams played 11 innings Tuesday night, with the Reds winning 5-3 in a game in which the Padres went 3 for 20 with runners in scoring position and failed in the eighth, ninth and 10th innings to get the winning run home from second or third base.

“I (said) last night, before we won or lost today, I thought today was going to be a really, really big game,” Gavin Sheets said. “And after last night’s loss, to come out and play the way we did — to fight, get down, come back, get down, come back, it showed a lot. I think it was probably one of the biggest wins, if not the biggest win of the season, just the way the last 24, 48 hours have gone.”

The Padres on Wednesday got just enough from starting pitcher Michael King and just enough from their own exhausted bullpen to finish 3-3 on their homestand and win for the fourth time in their past 16 games.

King allowed three runs in 6 2/3 innings, all on home runs — a two-run shot by Spencer Steer in the fourth inning that put the Reds up 2-1 and a solo blast by JJ Bleday with two outs in the seventh that broke a 2-2 tie.

The Padres, who took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Manny Machado’s double brought around Jackson Merrill from first base and tied the game in the fourth on a double by Rodolfo Durán and an RBI single by Tatis, had to score twice to get back even after Eugenio Suárez added a solo homer off Ron Marinaccio in the eighth.

They did so with two runs in the bottom of that inning on Merrill’s leadoff double, a one-out double by Sheets and a two-out single by Samad Taylor.

With all of their higher-leverage arms being virtually off limits because of recent workload, Wandy Peralta followed Marinaccio out of the bullpen to work the ninth inning.

He allowed a single to leadoff hitter Matt McLain to start the inning, got a double-play grounder from Bleday, walked Reds home run leader Sal Stewart and then got a fielder’s choice grounder from Steer.

Durán and Sung-Mun Song began the ninth with groundouts before Tatis walked to the plate.

There was a time when it would have almost been expected that he would hit a home run in such a spot.

Wednesday was just his second career walk-off homer, but he had a penchant for the dramatic blast early in his career. And he entered this season averaging a home run every 17.13 at-bats.

He hit his first home run of 2026 on May 30 in Washington, in his 208th at-bat of the season. While he was batting .310 (13-for-42) since then, he had not added to his home run total.

But he did not miss the 2-1 slider Petty hung in the heart of the plate, though it did seem questionable as to whether he would get a home run or a double as the ball never got more than 40 feet off the ground. At 18 degrees, it was tied for the second-lowest lunch angle on any of Tatis’ 154 career homers.

“Yeah, it was low, so I was like, ‘You better get on second,’” Tatis said. “I saw everybody jumping. I really didn’t catch the ball right away, but I saw the left fielder just gave up, so I knew it was over the wall.”

It was as he rounded first base that he stretched out his arms and began to glide, the roar of the crowd helping to carry him to teammates waiting in a raucous semi-circle around the plate.

“I blacked out,” Tatis said. “It’s definitely rewarding to hear the crowd like that, and that’s why we play this game.”

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