Good morning from Washington,
We should talk about Jackson Merrill again today.
Why not?
I wrote about him twice yesterday.
The first time (here) was about how he arrived home in a slump. The second time (here) was a glowing appraisal of his ability to produce productive outs.
So after Merrill went 4-for-5, scored three times and drove in a run in the Padres’ 12-3 victory over the Nationals last night, we might as well wax poetic about the rookie again.
He is unique.
“Every time he kind of goes into a slight (slump), he comes back out really quick,” Xander Bogaerts said last night. “That’s not something (easy) for any big leaguer to do. Sometimes our slumps are long. But this guy, for some reason this year, he’s been able to turn the corner really quick. … It doesn’t tend to take that long with him, which is very good.”
Merrill may have been pressing a little for a time this month. It seemed he was, according to those around him in the dugout and clubhouse, more tense than he would have liked to let on. That’s natural.
What is not natural is his ability to keep everything relatively the same — his swing, his level head — at virtually all times.
For Merrill, the reason is simple. As in, he keeps it simple.
“It’s baseball,” he said. “It’s always baseball. It’s never just anything else but baseball.”
Here is how Merrill’s first season of Major League Baseball has gone, 100 games in:
Merrill began last night with a double in the second inning and scored. He singled and scored in the third. He drove in a run with a triple and scored in the fourth. He struck out in the sixth and then singled in the eighth.
“One hundred percent I wanted a homer,” he said of the one facet of the cycle he did not get last night.
But he told hitting coach Victor Rodriguez before going to the plate the final time that he was going to hit a single.
“I think where I’m at right now,” he said, “let’s stay short and try to hit a single, stay in my approach.”
You can read in my game story (here) about how the Padres methodically turned an early deficit into last night’s rout.
He’s back, almost entirely
Bogaerts was 4-for-4 and walked once last night. He is batting .483 (14-for-29) in his seven games since returning from a 52-day absence necessitated by a fracture in his left shoulder.
“He looks like the Bogey we all expect,” manager Mike Shildt said before the game.
Almost.
Bogaerts said yesterday afternoon he is holding back a little bit, both at the plate and in the field.
“I’d say maybe the diving part,” he said.
He lamented a play he felt could have made at second base with a more aggressive dive in the eighth inning Friday in Cleveland. (Here is video of that play.)
It was on a dive for a grounder on May 20 that Bogaerts got hurt.
“That is very mental,” he said. “(The doctors) say, ‘You’re good.’ But that’s just very hard.”
Bogaerts said he has also been hesitant to swing as hard as he can.
“I don’t want to go all out right out, and then I do something and take five steps back,” he said. “They say I’m good. But …”
Every one of Bogaerts’ hits since he returned has been a single. He laughed at the suggestion he is in full Luis Arraez mode.
“I’ll take it,” he said. “Feels good to be able to do that. We’re not getting ungrateful here for hits.”
Rotation plans
The Padres have not officially determined who will start tomorrow’ series opener against the Orioles.
It will not be Michael King, who is being given a fifth day of rest, and it will not be Jhony Brito, who had an injury scare with forearm discomfort last week and has just resumed playing catch with no date set for a return to starting in Triple-A.
It will almost certainly not be a pitcher the Padres trade for, as that transaction would pretty much have had to occur already.
So it could be Adam Mazur, though the consensus seems to be he is best served working in the minor leagues, lefty Jackson Wolf or Nabil Crismatt. The latter would likely be the opener in a bullpen game if he were called up.
The lack of a fifth starter is the biggest reason the Padres are urgently attempting to acquire a starter in the crowded trade market.
And there is this as well: Three of the four starters they have are not assured of finishing the season — at least not while working as much as they have been.
King has thrown 118 innings, 13⅓ more than he ever had in the major leagues and 43⅓ innings shy of his career-high innings compiled at three different levels of the minor leagues in 2018.
Matt Waldron last night reached 118⅔ innings for the season, five more than his previous career high set in 2022 between Double-A and Triple-A.
Randy Vásquez’s 69 innings are almost 50 fewer than he threw between Triple-A and the major leagues last season. But just 37⅔ of those were in the majors, and he made just five starts last season versus the 14 he has made in 2024.
Tidbits
- Padres pitchers have allowed just 14 hits over the past four games, tying for the fewest hits allowed in a four-game span in team history. Among the three other times they did it was May 8-12. The Padres have also allowed just four runs in the past four games. The only other time they allowed this few runs and hits in a four-game span was July 28-31, 1984, when they gave up 14 hits while throwing four consecutive shutouts.
- Kyle Higashioka hit his 11th home run in 90 at-bats since June 1. That tied him with Gary Sánchez (2023) for the most homers ever hit by a Padres catcher in a span of 90 at-bats.
- The Padres’ bullpen has thrown 10 scoreless innings over the past four games. Their only longer streak this season was 14⅓ innings over four games from May 20-22.
- Jurickson Profar’s two-run homer in last night’s second inning gave the Padres a 4-3 lead. It was his team-leading 10th game-deciding RBI.
- Profar’s 10 RBIs (in five games) against the Nationals is tied for his most against any opponent this season. He has 10 RBIs in 10 games against the Diamondbacks. He has had 10 RBIs in a season against multiple opponents in his career but has never had more than 10.
- The bottom third of the Padres’ lineup (Merrill, Higashioka and Bryce Johnson) combined to go 8-for-14 with a home run, a triple and two doubles last night. The 7-8-9 spots are batting a combined .367 (18-for-49) during the team’s four-game winning streak.
- Arraez went 2-for-4 last night and is batting .400 (10-for-25) during a six-game hitting streak.
- With four runs in the second inning and five in the fourth inning last night, the Padres have scored at least four runs in an MLB-leading 36 innings this season. That is already more than in all but 10 of their 56 seasons of existence.
- Ha-Seong Kim walked twice last night. It was the first time in five games since the All-Star break he did not have at least once pitch outside the strike zone called a strike. It had happened an MLB-high eight times in the previous four games.
- Bryce Miller wrote a column (here) suggesting perhaps Donovan Solano could have some trade value, especially since he is not being used now that Bogaerts is back.
- Today against left-hander Patrick Corbin, by the way, might be a good day for Solano to get a start at third base. Manny Machado could DH with Arraez playing first and Bogaerts second. Jake Cronenworth, who is hitless in his past nine at-bats against lefties and is batting .196 against them this season, could get a day off.
All right, that’s it for me. Early game today. Really early (9:05 a.m. PT). And then a 41-minute train ride to Baltimore.
Talk to you tomorrow.
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