The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres renewed their rivalry in the latest installment of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball – ending in a 5-2 extra-inning Dodgers victory. With two outs in the ninth inning, Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts hit a game-tying home run off of Padres closer Josh Hader, and they put the game away with hits in the extra frame. Upon Betts’ clutch hit, ESPN analyst Eduardo Pérez subsequently chided Padres outfielder Fernando Tatís Jr., who was suspended 80 games after he tested positive for a banned substance.
“That’s what a superstar looks like ‘Nando,” Pérez said. “Mookie Betts – redeeming himself after that first inning mishap that he owned.”
Tatís Jr. recently made his return to the major leagues coinciding with the end of the suspension for the use of performance enhancing drugs. Before the suspension, he was viewed by many baseball fans as a role model and one of the young stars of the game.
Several baseball fans on Twitter and beyond took Pérez’s statement as superfluous, especially since Tatís Jr. served the suspension and has publicly stated his intent to mature and act more professionally. Monday morning on The Leadoff Spot, the radio show on which he appears with Steve Phillips and Xavier Scruggs broadcast on SiriusXM’s MLB Network Radio, Pérez offered an apology for his comments.
“As soon as I said it, I cringed,” Pérez stated. “It wasn’t that I was carried away in the moment; it’s that you look at the screen because you’re trying to see and follow where the director is going as well. By coincidence, it was Fernando Tatís Jr. that popped up on the screen… And I said, ‘Nando, this is what superstars look like.’ And I cringed a little bit and I said, ‘Did it sound bad or not?’”
Pérez affirmed that he took 100% ownership of what he said and noted that he will need to apologize to Tatís Jr. directly to make the situation right.
“That’s not who I am and that’s not how I sound professionally on-air,” Pérez said. “If it’s on radio or not, I always try to come through and there was no reason to make it single out that way. I said. I own it. It sounded that way, even though the intention wasn’t that way.”
