Tatis' 17-game streak halfway to Santiago's club record

SAN DIEGO -- Fernando Tatis Jr. is halfway to Benito.

With his first-inning single in the Padres' 4-3 victory over Oakland on Tuesday night at Petco Park, Tatis wasted no time extending his hitting streak to 17 games -- the longest active mark in baseball.

Seventeen more, and he'd match the franchise record Benito Santiago set in 1987. As it stands, it's the longest hitting streak by a Padre since Adrián González recorded a pair of 17-gamers in 2006

“Wow,” said Tatis, informed that he had matched González. “I remember seeing Adrián González since I remember watching baseball. Seeing him play, that guy was an All-Star, one of the best hitters to come from Mexico. It’s just very humbling, rewarding, when you’re on the same list as players like that.”

After a slow start to the season, Tatis has been scorching during his streak, which began on May 25. In that span, he's hitting precisely .400 (28-for-70) with five home runs. He entered Tuesday with homers in three of his past four games -- to left-center on Friday, to straightaway center on Sunday and to right on Monday. How hot is Tatis right now?

"If I touch him -- I'm hurt," Luis Arraez joked over the weekend. "He's amazing. He looks so special. I'm excited for him, because he started a little slow, but he's a professional, he's an All-Star player. He just needed to keep continuing to play."

Tatis finished 2-for-4 with a double off the wall as part of a fifth-inning rally in which the Padres took a 3-1 lead with four two-out hits on four consecutive pitches. After the A’s rallied to tie the game in the eighth, Kyle Higashioka’s first career walk-off home run won it for San Diego.