Fernando Tates Jr. meets the surgeon and goes up in defense

Phoenix – Fernando Tates Jr. Arrived in Arizona this week and received good news quickly.

On Tuesday, Padres Shortstop met with the surgeon who performed the March 16 operation to repair the broken scaphoid bone in his left wrist. Head coach Bob Melvin said Tates got permission to “step up what he’s doing on the defensive end”.

The star was with the team prior to the series’ opening game versus linebacker D at Chase Field.

“I know he’s excited about the fact that he’s going to be on the field with us, and there are no restrictions in terms of taking grounds, throwing and so on,” Melvin said. “Beating will be the last thing.”

After his meeting with the surgeon, Tates did not wait long to accompany his San Diego teammates to the field. Join them as they hit the ground running and work through the defensive drills. Before that, he was playing catch, hitting balls straight towards him, taking some light dry flips and hitting briefly on the tee with a fungo racket.

Tatis still isn’t rocking at full speed just yet, but he should probably do so in about a couple of weeks. At this point, he’ll need to work through his hits progression and then go on a rehab job in a minor league afterward.

So it doesn’t seem likely that Tatis will return until after the All-Star break, perhaps in late July or early August, depending on how things go once he starts hitting. Two files don’t have a set timeline, and won’t until Tates adds that last piece to his recovery plan.

“It depends on how he was sort of set up before he started playing games. Then how he feels during the rehab process,” Melvin said. “You definitely want him to come back when he feels good about how he swings the bat. Perhaps more days with us would be better than spending a few days with us. But he doesn’t have spring training, so it will literally be a daily operation, although once he starts [hitting]We’ll probably put him on the map and then go from there to see how he feels.”