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PHOENIX — Fernando Tatis Jr. met with his boss, San Diego Padres chairman Peter Seidler, about a week after drawing his steroid-related, industry-rattling suspension. It started off poorly — and Seidler interpreted that as a positive sign.

“I could see in his body language how bad he felt,” Seidler told ESPN in a sit-down interview on Thursday. “Some humans, when this happens, they don’t feel bad. They feel like they’re the victim in some way. Fernando owned it. He felt bad because he knew he let people down. And when we started talking — he loosened up at some points — we talked about how, ‘This is a big one, but people bounce back from these things.’ And I knew he would. I told him that. It was too fresh for him to really form a ton of thoughts, but I could see it. He knew what had happened. And he was going to figure out the best path forward.”

Seidler watched Tatis’ highly anticipated return to baseball up close on Thursday night, while seated directly behind the Padres’ first-base dugout from Chase Field in Phoenix.

Two years earlier, in February of 2021, Seidler rewarded Tatis with a 14-year, $340 million extension, an unprecedented number for someone who at that time was only a month removed from his 22nd birthday. It was widely hailed as a “statue contract,” a clear indication of the space Tatis promised to occupy within the organization’s history. The news conference to celebrate it began with Seidler saying, “It’s a rare chance to wake up the next day after we agreed to the contract and there’s no doubt in your mind.”

The following year provided plenty of reasons to doubt, first with the wrist injury that was caused by an offseason motorcycle accident, then by the positive test for an anabolic steroid just as Tatis was making his return in August, circumstances that forced him to miss all of 2022 and the first 20 games of 2023.

Seidler stressed that he was never angry.

“I think just for me, things like this don’t make me mad,” Seidler said. “People make their own choices in life. I work in a lot of different areas, and men in their 20s tend to make a mistake or two. I haven’t met one who hasn’t — including myself, of course.”

In their initial meeting, Seidler and Tatis spoke about repairing relationships with his teammates, the fans and the front office. They acknowledged the length of that process and talked about taking it one step at a time.

“I was just honest with him,” Seidler said. “And I think vice versa.”

Speaking Thursday, on a night when Tatis ultimately went 0-for-5 but also turned in an acrobatic catch in his new position of right field, Seidler praised Tatis for completing the necessary steps over the course of these past eight months. He addressed his teammates in a players-only meeting, during which he was widely described as being authentic and remorseful. He underwent two critical surgeries — the left shoulder procedure the Padres recommended a year earlier, to address the subluxations that plagued his 2021 season, and a second cleanup of the injured left wrist that robbed him of the first five months of 2022 — and engaged in more open dialogue with the Padres’ front office over the ensuing offseason.

Tatis returned to San Diego for baseball activities in early January, was among the first to arrive at the Padres’ spring training complex the following month and took to the outfield with noticeable vigor, despite harboring aspirations of someday returning to shortstop. It was enough to make Seidler believe Tatis, now 24, was navigating the right path.

“He’s a good dude,” Seidler said of Tatis. “He’s respectful, he’s likable, he cares about people, he loves San Diego. And for him to have let down the people of San Diego, it really hurt him. As it should have. He made a serious and regrettable mistake. Look, we’re all human. We make mistakes. A lot of times it’s if and how you bounce back. You know, he quietly, when nobody was looking, did a lot of things under the radar — getting the first surgery and then the second surgery were big, getting his body ready, getting his mind ready.

“These are things that, on a gut level, I thought he would do. But you never know. He’d never been through something like this before. And for me, fast-forward to tonight — it’s the culmination of a lot of work, a lot of soul-searching, a lot of listening to the people that he does trust and getting good feedback.”

Tatis accumulated 81 home runs, 52 stolen bases, a .965 OPS and 13.6 FanGraphs wins above replacement during his 273 career games from 2019 to 2021. He scored major sponsorship deals with Adidas and Gatorade, graced the cover of the popular video game “MLB: The Show” and was widely considered the next face of baseball. It all collapsed quickly, as a result of his own choices. But Seidler said he is “very optimistic about what’s ahead” for Tatis.

“I trust him,” he added. “I believe in him.”

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Stanton won’t blame ailing elbows on torpedo bats

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Stanton won't blame ailing elbows on torpedo bats

NEW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton, one of the first known adopters of the torpedo bat, declined Tuesday to say whether he believes using it last season caused the tendon ailments in both elbows that forced him to begin this season on the injured list.

Last month, Stanton alluded to “bat adjustments” he made last season as a possible reason for the epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow, he’s dealing with.

“You’re not going to get the story you’re looking for,” Stanton said. “So, if that’s what you guys want, that ain’t going to happen.”

Stanton said he will continue using the torpedo bat when he returns from injury. The 35-year-old New York Yankees slugger, who has undergone multiple rounds of platelet-rich plasma injections to treat his elbows, shared during spring training that season-ending surgery on both elbows was a possibility. But he has progressed enough to recently begin hitting off a Trajekt — a pitching robot that simulates any pitcher’s windup, arm angle and arsenal. However, he still wouldn’t define his return as “close.”

He said he will first have to go on a minor league rehab assignment at an unknown date for an unknown period. It won’t start in the next week, he added.

“This is very unique,” Stanton said. “I definitely haven’t missed a full spring before. So, it just depends on my timing, really, how fast I get to feel comfortable in the box versus live pitching.”

While the craze of the torpedo bat (also known as the bowling pin bat) has swept the baseball world since it was revealed Saturday — while the Yankees were blasting nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers — that a few members of the Yankees were using one, the modified bat already had quietly spread throughout the majors in 2024. Both Stanton and former Yankees catcher Jose Trevino, now with the Cincinnati Reds, were among players who used the bats last season after being introduced to the concept by Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-educated physicist and former minor league hitting coordinator for the organization.

Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt and Austin Wells were among the Yankees who used torpedo bats during their season-opening sweep of the Brewers.

Stanton explained he has changed bats before. He said he has usually adjusted the length. Sometimes, he opts for lighter bats at the end of the long season. In the past, when knuckleballers were more common in the majors, he’d opt for heavier lumber.

Last year, he said he simply chose his usual bat but with a different barrel after experimenting with a few models.

“I mean, it makes a lot of sense,” Stanton said. “But it’s, like, why hasn’t anyone thought of it in 100-plus years? So, it’s explained simply and then you try it and as long as it’s comfortable in your hands [it works]. We’re creatures of habit, so the bat’s got to feel kind of like a glove or an extension of your arm.”

Stanton went on to lead the majors with an average bat velocity of 81.2 mph — nearly 3 mph ahead of the competition. He had a rebound, but not spectacular, regular season in which he batted .233 with 27 home runs and a .773 OPS before clubbing seven home runs in 14 playoff games.

“It’s not like [it was] unreal all of a sudden for me,” Stanton said.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone described the torpedo bats “as the evolution of equipment” comparable to getting fitted for new golf clubs. He said the organization is not pushing players to use them and insisted the science is more complicated than just picking a bat with a different barrel.

“There’s a lot more to it than, ‘I’ll take the torpedo bat on the shelf over there — 34 [inches], 32 [ounces],'” Boone said. “Our guys are way more invested in it than that. And really personalized, really work with our players in creating this stuff. But it’s equipment evolving.”

As players around the majors order torpedo bats in droves after the Yankees’ barrage over the weekend — they clubbed a record-tying 13 homers in two games against the Brewers — Boone alluded to the notion that, though everyone is aware of the concept, not every organization can optimize its usage.

“You’re trying to just, where you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit,” Boone said. “And that’s really all you’re going to do. I don’t think this is some revelation to where we’re going to be; it’s not related to the weekend that we had, for example. Like, I don’t think it’s that. Maybe in some cases, for some players, it may help them incrementally. That’s how I view it.”

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Rangers’ Eovaldi gets season’s 1st complete game

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Rangers' Eovaldi gets season's 1st complete game

CINCINNATI — Nathan Eovaldi pitched a four-hitter for the majors’ first complete game of the season, and the Texas Rangers blanked the Cincinnati Reds 1-0 on Tuesday night.

Eovaldi struck out eight and walked none in his fifth career complete game. The right-hander threw 99 pitches, 70 for strikes.

It was Eovaldi’s first shutout since April 29, 2023, against the Yankees and just the third of his career. He became the first Ranger with multiple career shutouts with no walks in the past 30 seasons, according to ESPN Research.

“I feel like, by the fifth or sixth inning, that my pitch count was down, and I feel like we had a really good game plan going into it,” Eovaldi said in his on-field postgame interview on Victory+. “I thought [Texas catcher Kyle Higashioka] called a great game. We were on the same page throughout the entire game.”

In the first inning, Wyatt Langford homered for Texas against Carson Spiers (0-1), and that proved to be all Eovaldi needed. A day after Cincinnati collected 14 hits in a 14-3 victory in the series opener, Eovaldi (1-0) silenced the lineup.

“We needed it, these bats are still quiet,” Texas manager Bruce Bochy said of his starter’s outing. “It took a well-pitched game like that. What a game.”

The Reds put the tying run on second with two out in the ninth, but Eovaldi retired Elly De La Cruz on a grounder to first.

“He’s as good as I have seen as far as a pitcher performing under pressure,” Bochy said. “He is so good. He’s a pro out there. He wants to be out there.”

Eovaldi retired his first 12 batters, including five straight strikeouts during one stretch. Gavin Lux hit a leadoff single in the fifth for Cincinnati’s first baserunner.

“I think it was the first-pitch strikes,” Eovaldi said, when asked what made him so efficient. “But also, the off-speed pitches. I was able to get some quick outs, and I didn’t really have many deep counts. … And not walking guys helps.”

Spiers gave up three hits in six innings in his season debut. He struck out five and walked two for the Reds, who fell to 2-3.

The Rangers moved to 4-2, and Langford has been at the center of it all. He now has two home runs in six games to begin the season. In 2024, it took him until the 29th game of the season to homer for the first time. Langford hit 16 homers in 134 games last season during his rookie year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Source: USC flips Ducks’ Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

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Source: USC flips Ducks' Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.

Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.

Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).

The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.

Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.

Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.

Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.

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