Mark Whicker: Merrill’s late-inning heroics helping make Padres NL West contenders
Centre fielder Jackson Merrill’s clutch hitting and defence are a big reason the San Diego Padres are in contention for the National League West division title.
August 14, 2024
By Mark Whicker
Canadian Baseball Network
The San Diego Padres roll through life with a truckload of talent.
Behind them are 29 other ballclubs, hoping to gather what falls off.
You’ve noticed Xavier Edwards, the Miami Marlins’ shortstop who has already hit for the cycle. He’s a Padre alum. So are Trea Turner, Emmanuel Clase, Anthony Rizzo, Max Fried, Josh Naylor (Mississauga, Ont.), C.J. Abrams, MacKenzie Gore and David Bednar.
There’s another reason to follow the Padres on their path. They appear destined for the playoffs and maybe even the National League West title. In recent years, the teams that get hotter as the days get shorter are the ones to watch in the postseason. San Diego’s win over Pittsburgh Tuesday night was its 31st in its past 44 games. It is tied with Arizona, 3 1/2 games behind the Dodgers in a microwaving division race.
And, with each victory, the Padres make sure that rookie outfielder Jackson Merrill is tied down and tightly secured. Despite the gyrations of general manager A.J. Preller, Merrill is not going anywhere. At least not until October.
Merrill is hitting .286 (10th in the N.L.) with a .795 OPS (18th). He has 19 doubles and 17 home runs and 64 RBIs. Those wouldn’t be bad numbers even if Merrill wasn’t 21 years old and was only drafted three years ago. But some hits are louder than others.
On July 30, the Padres trailed the Dodgers 5-0 after one inning, scrapped their way back into the game, and got a home run from Merrill off Blake Treinen in the ninth inning to win, 6-5. On Aug. 7 Merill took Bednar deep in Pittsburgh, tying a game in the ninth inning that San Diego won in 10. Two nights later he homered off George Soriano in the ninth in Miami, tying another game that Manny Machado won in the 10th. Five times Merrill has either won or tied a game with a home run in the eighth inning or later. Only Frank Robinson (1956, with six) has done it more times as a 21-year-old or younger.
When he wasn’t winning or tying games he was saving them. On Monday, he dived to snare Bryan Reynolds’ liner with two out and one on in the top of the ninth, and San Diego escaped with a 2-1 win.
It will take thunderbolts like that for Merrill to illuminate the Rookie of the Year voters, who have fallen hard for Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes. Just remember that Merrill has been competing every day since the season started in South Korea, when he took an 0-for from the Dodgers’ Tyler Glasnow in his major league debut.
Merrill and Jurrickson Profar have been two of the Padres’ constants, but now the parade is long and growing. Michael King, the former Yankees reliever who came west in the trade for Juan Soto, has been exceptional at the top of a rotation that has gotten only 22 starts out of Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove. Dylan Cease, whom Preller got from the White Sox, pitched the second no-hitter in club history.
Xander Bogaerts looked like the latest wretchedly excessive free agent that Preller had signed, but now he’s healthy and hitting. And Preller brought in lefty Tanner Scott and Brian Hoeing from Miami, plus Jason Adam from Tampa Bay, to link the starters with closer Robert Suarez. Now the Padres might have the pre-eminent bullpen in the game.
You make moves when you’ve been a major league team since 1969 and you’ve never won a World Series and you’ve only played in two. That was the ambition of owner Peter Seider, the grandson of Dodger patriarch Walter O’Malley, who had fought diabetes and two instances of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and died last Nov. 14. That’s the source of the “PS” patch on the San Diego jerseys, although it could also stand for the footnotes that this team hopes to leave.
The aggressiveness shown by Seidler and Preller have enchanted a city that lost its beloved NFL team in 2016. As of Wednesday, the Padres had drawn 2.4 million, third in the league. One can quibble with Preller’s impulsiveness, but the Padres’ front office has shown it can identify players. Merrill was no slam dunk. From Severna Park, Md., Merrill was small and skinny and wasn’t even invited to play on travel-ball teams in his early high school days.
Going into his senior year, his most serious college offer was from Army.
But Merrill kept building himself up, and the Padres were the first to notice, and Preller worried that other scouts would pick up the scent. Merrill justified those fears, earning the attention even though Severna Park’s season didn’t start until May because of Covid-19 and only lasted six weeks. Still, Merrill was there at pick No. 27, and the Padres only needed $1.8 million to dissuade him from attending Kentucky.
Oh, and that opener against the Dodgers in South Korea?
It was Merrill’s first-ever game in centre field. All his life he had been a shortstop, and that was Preller’s justification for drafting him, because it’s a premium position. But premium athletes with a clear head and a strong work ethic don’t get fazed by position changes.
“I’ve had guys who have had the work ethic, the aggression and the acumen,” Padres’ manager Mike Schildt told The Athletic. “But I haven’t had one who has had all of it as much as he’s had, combined.”
The purists among us can only lament the absence of a true zero-sum pennant race. What if the Dodgers, Padres and Diamondbacks were butting heads for just one playoff spot? But the Padres aren’t hung up on the hypotheticals. As long as they can find more Jackson Merrills, they know that the stuff that stays on the truck is more important than what falls off.