PEORIA, Ariz. — San Diego Padres fans and Major League Baseball alike were rocked on Monday morning with reports that superstar shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. had fractured his left wrist. General Manager AJ Preller told reporters that surgery is certainly a possibility to fix the broken scaphoid bone. The club says the potential recovery time from that surgery will be around three months.
With the news of the broken bone came many different questions. One of the top is how did Tatis break it? The Padres shortstop was involved in a minor motorcycle accident in the Dominican Republic in early December. However, Tatis says his wrist didn’t bother him after the accident. During media availability with Tatis on Monday, reporters asked him many questions about the accident to which Tatis gave very vague answers.
When asked about the specifics of the motorcycle accident, Tatis Jr. said, “Nothing. Just bruises.” A reporter then asked how the accident happened. Tatis said, “It just happened.” The reporter pressed and asked if he hit something, to which Tatis responded, “Nah, nah, nah.” He then added that he just fell off the bike.
Tatis said the wrist really started to be uncomfortable when he was ramping up swinging while getting ready for spring training “about a month ago.” He added, “It was nothing crazy. It felt like something we could work through. I mean I always play with pain, but obviously this time we couldn’t.”
As for surgery, Tatis said nothing has been confirmed and that “doctors and the rest of the staff will dictate that.”
Another interesting wrinkle to this entire story is how it was able to be handled due to the MLB lockout. Tatis was unable to contact the organization which seems to have led to a delay in getting the fracture fixed. When asked if he had thought about if the injury would have been found sooner because of the lockout, Tatis said, “Definitely could have been a different story, yeah.”
The news of Tatis’ injury comes the morning of the club’s first full workout in Peoria. The team’s first spring training game will be on March 18 against the Seattle Mariners.