Fernando Tatís Jr peeks at the sign before hitting a homer, a breakdown
What Happened
On April 24, 2021, in a tie game in the sixth inning between the Padres and Dodgers, Fernando Tatis Jr. came up against Trevor Bauer and worked a long at-bat full of fastballs and sliders away. The whole thing had a backstory: Bauer had tweeted at Tatis that morning, basically accusing him of peeking at signs and telling him to just ask if he needed help. In a 3-2 count, after the catcher flashed the sign for a cutter, Tatis turns his head back toward the plate at the exact moment the catcher tucks his fingers in. Bauer leaves the cutter outside, Tatis reaches and barrels it for a home run, then crosses the plate doing Bauer's own one-eye-closed celebration to troll him.
Why This Matters
Peeking at the catcher isn't against any written rule, which is why it's such a great gray area to argue about. There's no penalty if a hitter sneaks a look. The unwritten code says catchers protect their signs, and the more paranoid ones stare a batter down before flashing anything. The fun here is whether Tatis actually gained anything. He turns his head too late to read fingers, but he might have caught the catcher shifting his weight outside, and Bauer had been pounding that outer half all at-bat anyway. So the homer may owe more to scouting than to cheating. The aftermath was pure 2021 theater: Bauer and Tatis trading shots online, both calling each other daddy, Tatis adding the one-eye-closed strut Bauer bragged about in spring training. It captured how loud and personal the Padres-Dodgers rivalry got that season.
At 5.1M views this sits 20th out of 1,583 Jomboy breakdowns, putting it in the top 1.3% of the whole catalog.
Key Moments
Who / What Is Involved
Players: Fernando Tatís Jr.. Teams: Padres.
Key Terms Mentioned
Full Transcript
Click timestamps to jump to that momentthe dodgers and the padres remain to be
must-watch games bower and tatisse bauer
tweeted at tatis earlier today about
this at-bat said hey if you need the
signs just ask quit peaking so let's get
into what he's talking about here's
pitch number one tie game in the six
nice fastball by bower there fouls it
off then he goes slider off the plate he
doesn't really get it where he wanted to
be i don't think i think this is what he
wanted to do so he doubles up slider and
that's exactly what he what he wants to
do with that pitch establish the outside
with the fastball then go slider and
then it breaks right out of the zone get
him swinging he tries to do it again but
kind of yanks it again now he's going to
come back fastball 2-2 but you can see
he yanks that as well he's got to
reestablish himself you can see up here
fastball slider slider fastball i think
not this big in this tacky but i would
love it if down here broadcast did this
put the sequence somewhere like f sl
l all that stuff it'd be cool to follow
along with the game broadcast do that so
now he gets the sign he wants to go
fastball again in the 3-2 count and he
kind of puts it right in the middle
fouls it back again and now here's where
it gets tricky you can see the catcher
throwing down the signs i don't know
what that is if it's a one or a two but
bower shakes and he goes to this sign
three which is a cutter and bauer shakes
yes i want that now watch tatisse's head
he grabs a peek but by the time he turns
his head to peak the catcher's fingers
i'm going backwards now so we can get
there so the catcher's fingers are out
tatis is not peeking the catcher's
fingers come in and this is when tatis
decides to peak and if you don't watch
baseball a lot and you're like is this a
thing do batters really do this yeah
some people do it there's more paranoid
catchers than there are batters that do
that you'll see the catchers a lot of
times staring at the batter before he
puts down his sign what tatis may have
saw here is that the catcher moves his
shoulder a little bit
to the right and tatis might say okay
they're gonna go outside he didn't see
the sign but maybe he saw the catcher
rock to the outside a little bit to help
cheat that way but also bauer was
pitching him outside this entire at-bat
so he probably could have guessed he was
staying outside he throws the cutter
outside and he reaches out of the zone
barrels it this girl gets under it
catches no hits her hand rolls
underneath the tarp they search for it
have a whole search party who knows if
they ever find it tatis goes straight
pinwheels let's go
let's go
then he's gonna round first his whole
team is excited for him bower confused
why is the first cutter i threw why was
that was so outside why was he all did
he peek
oh
and a little stutter step into third
base i kind of actually love that it's
pretty smooth everything tatis does is
pretty smooth even if he cheated right
there that was kind of smooth but i
don't know how much advantage he did
gain help he does the bauer strut as he
crosses home plate trolls him a little
bit earlier in this game in the first
inning he hit a home run off of bower
and when he rounded first this time he
had the one eye troll which is something
that bauer did in spring training he was
throwing pitches with one eye closed and
then striking people out then bragging
about it so tatis didn't hit the home
run with one eye closed so i don't know
if he can fully do that but it's a troll
nonetheless so he did the strut for one
home run he did the eye closed for
another home run these guys were
tweeting at each other left and right
about this they both called each other
daddy i think
so trash talks kind of in a weird
weird place right now but anyway dodgers
padres incredibly fun stuff did he cheat
did he peek what do you guys think i
mean he definitely peaked right he
definitely tried to look right there
unless he
fought off a sneeze or something but do
you think it actually helped him he he
looked too late to see the sign see
but did he see him go outside and did
that even matter because every pitcher
is outside i mean this pitch was pretty
outside though
full extension he went after and got it
man i love baseball