Jackson Merrill blasts 15th home run in win Sunday

Merrill doubled in the second inning, then led off the seventh with another double before scoring on a sacrifice fly. He added a single in the eighth for his third hit of the game and scored again on a single by Jase Bowen. The 23-year-old outfielder is hitting a disappointing .228/.282/.382 with 14 homers, 49 runs scored, 45 RBI, and 20 steals across 429 plate appearances.

It’s Chris Sale on the mound for the Braves, so even though Merrill usually plays against lefties, the Padres have apparently decided this is a good time for a day off. Jase Bowen is starting in center.

Merrill’s solo home run in the seventh inning got the Padres on the board and tied this game at one run apiece. It was a majestic blast too, traveling an estimated 449 feet with a 109 mph exit velocity and Merrill is suddenly red-hot. Over his last four games, he’s gone 8-for-14 with four home runs and could finally, at long last, be getting it together this season.

Merrill, who was 0-for-13 in his previous three games, had his first three hits through four innings and then added a two-run homer off utilityman Tyler Tolbert in the ninth in what ended up being a 19-2 game. It was a rather cheap way to achieve his first two-homer game in 372 days, but fantasy leaguers waiting for something from him all year will certainly take it. The steal was his 20th, which has helped keep him relevant.

Merrill hit a 423-foot homer off a 99.5-mph Shohei Ohtani fastball in the fourth inning tonight. Merrill’s OPS has held very steady in the .600-.620 range for a couple of months, but he’s actually been worse than ever from an xwOBA standpoint of late. Maybe things are turning around now, but it’s going to take more than two games to make anyone believe it.

Merrill has been scuffling recently, hitting just .228 (28-for-123) with four homers and seven steals over his last 30 games. He’s just 5-for-28 over his last seven games. His cold spell corresponds with a hot streak from Samad Taylor, who has been hitting second for the last couple weeks now. The Padres have moved him out of the heart of the order temporarily with lefty Shota Imanaga taking the ball for Chicago at Wrigley Field on Monday night.

Merrill’s homer was a two-run shot in the ninth that gave San Diego a couple of insurance runs, his eighth of the year. He’s up to 12-for-13 in stolen-base attempts while running at a more aggressive clip than either of his first two seasons. Merrill’s performance at the plate has been in a multi-year decline since he exploded onto the scene as a 21-year-old rookie in 2024. However, he’s still just 23 years old, making him a strong buy-low candidate in keeper formats.

Machado took Orioles reliever Albert Suárez deep in the ninth inning to close out a five-homer afternoon for the Padres that included blasts by Jackson Merrill, Samad Taylor, Gavin Sheets and Rodolfo Durán. The 33-year-old veteran third baseman has hit a bit of a rough patch lately, batting .196 (9-for-46) with two homers and five RBI since the start of June.

It was a line drive missile off a Mitchell Parker slider, landing 414 feet away from the plate to right-center, that gave the Padres a late 7-5 lead they’d hold on to. Merrill briefly fell to hitting .194 earlier this week, but he’s now fought his way back to .201/.274/.332 on the season with 10 stolen bases and five home runs. If you could cover your eyes and forget about the batting average, the surface numbers are alright. But we can’t do that. Merrill will need to hit better over the summer to return value equivalent to his draft position for fantasy managers.

Merrill missed Friday’s game while dealing with soreness in his ribs. The 23-year-old is good to go for Saturday’s contest, however, and will hit sixth while patrolling center for San Diego in the middle contest against the A’s.