{"id":597836,"date":"2026-02-28T09:35:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T09:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/597836\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T09:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T09:35:19","slug":"fernando-tatis-jr-ready-to-electrify-wbc-while-leading-team-dr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/597836\/","title":{"rendered":"Fernando Tatis Jr. ready to electrify WBC while leading Team DR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/tag\/world-baseball-classic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">World Baseball Classic<\/a> starts next week. The WBC is meant for <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/mlb\/san-diego-padres\/padres-news-star-fernando-tatis-jr-drops-i-can-do-everything-response-to-lineup-question\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">superstars like Fernando Tatis Jr<\/a>., who love to represent their countries on the biggest stage. This is the World Cup of baseball. It doesn&#8217;t have the same feel as the World Cup, but these international baseball players have waited their whole lives to be a part of the WBC.<\/p>\n<p>Fernando Tatis Jr. is from the Dominican Republic. His dad, Fernando Tatis, was a home run hitter who is known for being the only MLB player ever to hit two grand slams in one inning \u2026 off the same pitcher. That may never happen again. Tatis is now a manager for a team in the Dominican Republic, and his son, Tatis Jr., has played for that team, leading them to a winter league championship. Tatis Jr. is a great MLB player for the <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/mlb\/san-diego-padres\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">San Diego Padres<\/a>, but representing the DR is what makes Tatis Jr. the happiest. He was meant to play for the DR in the WBC.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of his departure alongside Manny Machado, Tatis Jr. talked about what it means for him to play for Team DR.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Fernando Tatis Jr. on the opportunity to represent the Dominican Republic at the World Baseball Classic:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt means the world\u2026I\u2019m truly blessed to be from that small island.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/YwLdu0m5MD\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/YwLdu0m5MD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sammy Levitt (@SammyLev) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SammyLev\/status\/2027502569921314930?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 27, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt means the world. Where I come from, my family, what I am about, the culture, I am really happy I can represent the Dominican Republic. I am truly blessed to be from that small island.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The World Baseball Classic starts next week. The WBC is meant for superstars like Fernando Tatis Jr., who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,920,4,43,137,18,4339,4338,4820],"class_list":{"0":"post-597836","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-fernando-tatis-jr","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-padres","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-padres","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-sandiegopadres","16":"tag-world-baseball-classic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116147580222017774","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}