Jackson Merrill's walk-off HR lifts Padres to comb of A's – MLB.com

AJ Cassavell
SAN DIEGO — One other day, one other walk-off house run. The Padres, in the end, have their first sweep of the 2024 season.
On Wednesday afternoon, it was rookie Jackson Merrill who launched a walk-off solo house run to ship the Padres to a 5-4 victory over Oakland at Petco Park. Merrill, who homered within the fifth inning as properly, turned on a down-and-in slider from A’s aid ace Mason Miller and despatched it a Statcast-projected 369 toes to the Petco Porch space in proper area.
“I don’t even keep in mind me swinging,” Merrill mentioned. “It was simply a type of blackout moments. You do it, and it simply feels actually surreal.”
Merrill turned the youngest participant all-time to document two house runs in a sport, with one in all them a walk-off blast. At 21 years, 54 days outdated, he’s additionally the youngest Padre to writer a game-ending homer.
On Tuesday, it was Kyle Higashioka who played the role of walk-off hero with a house run down the left-field line. He and Merrill turned the second set of Padres teammates to hit walk-off house runs on consecutive days. Bruce Bochy and Marvell Wynne did so in April 1986.
“What a gorgeous strategy, not attempting to do an excessive amount of towards a man that’s fairly nasty,” supervisor Mike Shildt mentioned of Merrill’s first-pitch homer. “Only a good candy stroke, dropped the [bat] head and despatched everyone house comfortable.”
With the win, the Padres turned the thirtieth and last group within the Majors to document a sweep this yr, ending a maddening development by which they’d 5 earlier alternatives to shut out sweeps and failed to take action every time.
“We’d already gained the sequence,” Merrill mentioned. “However that wasn’t sufficient.”
This season, the Padres have requested an terrible lot of Merrill, their prime decide within the 2021 MLB Draft. They handed him their on a regular basis center-field job this spring — even supposing he’d by no means actually performed middle area earlier than.
Defensively, he’s been wonderful. Offensively, he’s been strong — and perhaps even a bit unlucky, given the standard of his contact. Merrill leads all rookies with 64 hits, and he’s batting .279/.314/.389 throughout his first 68 video games. Nonetheless, earlier than this week, Merrill’s rookie efficiency had flown underneath the radar.
“Not by us,” Shildt mentioned over the weekend. “Perhaps peripherally outdoors of our clubhouse. However it's not getting neglected by me and his teammates and our employees.”
After a sport like this — one which included the primary left-on-left homer of Merrill’s profession, then a walk-off blast towards one of many sport’s nastiest pitchers — he gained’t be neglected for much longer. Particularly contemplating the way in which Merrill performs.
Merrill goes all out, on a regular basis. On Saturday, with the Padres main by 12 runs within the ninth inning, he laid out to make a five-star catch, robbing Eugenio Suárez of additional bases. When the ball left his bat on Wednesday, he flipped his bat and pointed to the dugout earlier than operating to first base together with his hand within the air.
“I’m actually grateful to be his teammate,” mentioned Fernando Tatis Jr., who had his 17-game hitting streak snapped on Wednesday. “The man goes on the market each single day to play as onerous as he can.”
Merrill’s fifth-inning house run off left-hander Hogan Harris had put the Padres on prime 2-0. In the meantime, right-hander Michael King was cruising. King struck out 12, tying probably the most strikeouts ever by a Padres pitcher via 5 innings.
However when he allowed a pair of seeing-eye singles to begin the sixth, King’s day was achieved after 98 pitches. The A’s rallied towards Wandy Peralta, plating these two runs, then one other. Rule 5 Draft rookie Stephen Kolek was referred to as upon with the bases loaded and no one out — and he deftly escaped visitors with a pair of strikeouts and a superb catch by José Azocar in left.
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With the Padres trailing by two within the eighth, Tatis — in what would doubtless be his final likelihood to increase his hitting streak — laid off an in depth 3-2 pitch, working a stroll.
“He may’ve simply chased the hitting streak,” Shildt mentioned. “As an alternative, he took an important at-bat and earned the stroll on a borderline pitch. That’s successful baseball.”
Two batters later, Donovan Solano — who had homered to finish a nine-pitch battle with Harris within the second inning — swung at Lucas Erceg’s 99-mph, first-pitch heater and launched it into the Padres’ bullpen.
The sport was tied — till Merrill untied it an inning later.

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