Growing pained

 Some days the These Kids Today gene overwhelms, not to say the What The Hell Were You Thinking, Kid? gene. At those times we are all cranky old men shaking our liver-spotted fists at both the indignities of age and the folly of youth.

And so we come to San Diego Padres GM AJ Preller, who is only 45 but did a passable impression of Walt Kowalski from "Gran Torino" when his brightest star, Fernando Tatis Jr., showed red for a banned substance and drew an automatic 80-game suspension, which puts him out for the rest of the 2022 season.

This after the 23-year-old Tatis had already been gone for the first four months of the season because he broke his wrist in a motorcycle accident back in December.

Preller was not pleased, seeing how the Padres had stripped half their farm system to acquire Juan Soto, Josh Hader and Josh Bell to position themselves as a viable challenger to the dominant Dodgers.

"He's somebody that from the organization's standpoint we've invested time and money into," said Preller, clearly torqued. "We were hoping that from the offseason to now that there would be some maturity, and obviously with the news today, it's more of a pattern and it's something that we've got to dig a bit more into ...

"I'm sure he's very disappointed. But at the end of the day, it's one thing to say it. You've got to start showing by your actions ... I think what we need to get to is a point in time we trust (him). Over the course of the last six or seven months, that's been something that we haven't really been able to have there."

Blunt words, and perhaps not entirely wise words. Star players these days, after all, are always looking for reasons to feel disrespected, A public tongue-lashing from the front office would certainly provide that. You wonder how much of a rift that opens between Tatis and Preller, and if that rift will ultimately prove irreparable.

But, again, the These Kids Today gene cannot be overcome sometimes. Preller succumbed to it yesterday, and truthfully it would have been nearly impossible not to. The Padres are paying Tatis $340 million over 14 years, and for that have every right to expect some recognition that a certain responsibility attends such an investment. 

So far, they're still waiting for it.

They just wonder, first of all, what the hell the kid was doing on a motorcycle to begin with. Then he waits until March to have surgery on the wrist. And now?

Now he tests positive for Clostebol, an anabolic steroid banned by both MLB and the World Anti-Doping Agency. Commonly used for opthalmological and dermatological use, According to Tatis, it ended up in his system because it was in a ringworm med he was taking.

To his credit, he owned it completely, refusing to appeal the suspension. 

"I should have used the resources available to me in order to ensure that no banned substances were in what I took," he said in a statement. "I failed to do so ... I have no excuse for my error."

Preller, clearly frustrated, remained unappeased. The intersection of growing pains, and growing pained, has rarely been so well-marked. 

"He failed a drug screen. For whatever reason," Preller said. "That's a player's responsibility to make sure he's within compliance of that. He wasn't."

You could almost hear Walt Kowalski's snarl.