Padres' Fernando Tatis Jr ends worrying home run drought originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

The San Diego Padres have gotten off to quite a hot start this season, posting a record of 32-24 entering Saturday afternoon’s action. This record is enough to see them sit only four and a half games back of the defending World Series winners, the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Padres have seen constant production from their usual candidates, such as Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts, with both players posting more than 20 RBIs thus far. But they haven’t been seeing the usual production from one of their mainstays, Fernando Tatis Jr.

The Dominican slugger, who is used to posting an average of 21.7 home runs and 58 RBIs per season, has been struggling to produce, failing to record a single deep shot through the campaign. Going into Saturday afternoon’s action against the Washington Nationals, Tatis’ home run drought had gotten to 55 games, the longest in his career.

Tatis Jr snaps out of his cold spell

This drought would come to an end in the top of the fifth inning, when the Dominican rocked a pitch from Foster Griffin deep into left field for his first home run of the season, which would help the Padres extend their lead over the Nationals to two runs.