Fernando Tatis Jr. placed on injured reserve

SAN DIEGO – The Padres will be without star outfielder Fernando Tatis Jr. potentially during the All-Star break, after Tatis was recently diagnosed with a stress reaction in his right leg. San Diego placed Tatis on the IL on Monday after he was out of the lineup the last two games.

Tatis recently admitted that he played with tension in his right quad area for much of the season. Recent imaging revealed a stress response in his right femur. That didn’t limit Tatis’ performance at the plate, as he put together an All-Star caliber campaign, hitting .279 with an .821 OPS — including a 1.062 mark in June.

But recently, the injury has clearly affected Tatis’ ability to run the bases and cover ground in the outfield. This especially hurts him when he decelerates, manager Mike Shildt said. There is no specific time that Tatis could point to the origin of the injury, Shildt added. Tatis has not been made available since leaving Friday’s game against Milwaukee.

“He could still play, because he played with it,” Shildt said. “But it’s something that’s not going to get better if we don’t rest.”

Shildt did not explicitly state that the injury would keep Tatis out until the second half. But he highlighted the benefits of the upcoming schedule. Starting Thursday, San Diego has four days off in a 15-day period, followed by four additional days off for the All-Star break.

“We’ll take some time, let him heal,” Shildt said. “He is a young and great athlete. We expected him to heal faster. But we don’t have a timetable on that.

Tatis’ placement on the IL was part of a major flurry of moves for the Padres on Monday – including the announcement that Yu Darvish would not return to debut on Tuesday as originally planned. Darvish, Shildt revealed, is suffering from “a little inflammation in his (right) elbow.” Darvish is still being evaluated, but Shildt added: “Do we think it’s serious?” We don’t do it.

Darvish missed the last four weeks with a left groin strain and spent time earlier in the season on the IL with a neck issue. In his place, the Padres recalled right-hander Adam Mazur, who previously filled Darvish’s spot in the rotation. They demoted right-hander Jhony Brito in an effort to move him to a starting workload at Triple-A El Paso.

Tatis’ spot on the roster is outfielder Bryce Johnson, who batted ninth and played right field for Game 1 of Monday’s series against the Nationals. Left-handed hitting David Peralta seems most likely to take Tatis’ place most nights. But Shildt noted that Johnson and Tyler Wade would receive starts.

“The show goes on,” Shildt said. “We need to figure out how to continue to advance this mission.” … We’re going to get contributions from a lot of different people and we have to continue to find ways to shake hands at the end of games.

This is the important part. The Padres sit at .500, clinging to the final Wild Card spot in the National League, heading into their series against the Nationals, who are fellow Wild Card contenders. Already, San Diego has Xander Bogaerts (left shoulder fracture), Luis Campusano (left thumb bruise), Joe Musgrove (right elbow inflammation) and Darvish on the IL.

On Monday, they added Tatis to that list. Meanwhile, Jurickson Profar (left knee patellar tendinitis) and Manny Machado (right hip flexor sprain) have played through injuries recently. Out of this entire group of players, the Padres haven’t ruled anyone out for the season. It’s possible that the majority of these players will return and make major contributions over time. But the current state of the playoff race means the Padres need to find a way to weather their absence.

“No one will feel sorry for us,” Shildt said. “We have to dig in and figure out how we’re going to compete to win baseball games. We are going to do it.