The reasons Fernando Tatis Jr. still doesn't have a home run for the Padres

The reasons Fernando Tatis Jr. still doesn't have a home run for the Padres originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

There are layers to the fact that Fernando Tatis Jr. still hasn't hit a home run this season for the San Diego Padres.

It's relatively simple to point to a few statistics that line up with the fact that Tatis hasn't left the yard yet.

But the overall why? That's not as easy to solve.

The simple part is this: Tatis is hitting the ball on the ground more than he ever has in his career.

And then this: Tatis is pulling the ball less than he ever has in his career.

The simplest way to hit a home run is to pull the ball in the air. Tatis simply isn't doing that.

"Tatis is in the midst of the longest home run drought of his career -- 139 plate appearances spanning back to last season -- and he owns a .665 OPS through 31 games this year despite posting the second-highest hard-hit rate among qualifiers at 63.6%," MLB.com's Thomas Harrigan wrote in a new article this weekend. "While he has been hitting rockets, he hasn’t been producing contact that’s conducive to slugging, recording the lowest pull and fly-ball rates of his career. At some point, though, the dam is going to break."