425‑foot Merrill blast

Jackson Merrill capped San Diego’s 7-2 win over Colorado on April 12 with a 425-foot solo homer in the seventh inning. (mlb.com) The homer was Merrill’s third of the 2026 season, and it came in the Padres’ fifth straight win and a four-game sweep of the Rockies at Petco Park. (mlb.com) (espn.com) Major League Baseball’s official game story logged Merrill’s shot as the final scoring play in the bottom of the seventh after Ty France, Ramón Laureano and Manny Machado had already helped build the lead. (mlb.com) Merrill entered 2026 with a different baseline than most 22-year-olds. He made the National League All-Star team as a rookie in 2024, hit 24 home runs with an.826 on-base plus slugging percentage that year, and finished second in National League Rookie of the Year voting. (mlb.com 1) (mlb.com 2) (mlb.com 3) San Diego doubled down on that profile on April 2, 2025, when the club signed Merrill to a nine-year extension. In announcing the deal, Major League Baseball said Merrill had delivered “perhaps the best rookie campaign in franchise history.” (mlb.com) His early 2026 line had been quiet before Sunday. Baseball Savant listed Merrill at 2 home runs, a.193 batting average and a.621 on-base plus slugging percentage before the Rockies game, while still grading his barrel rate and hard-hit rate well above league average. (baseballsavant.mlb.com) That gap between results and contact quality is part of why one long ball drew so much notice. Baseball Savant showed Merrill in the 77th percentile in barrel rate and 75th percentile in hard-hit rate, two measures tied to how often hitters square up balls with home-run damage. (baseballsavant.mlb.com) Sunday’s swing fit the version of Merrill the Padres paid for: a center fielder with middle-of-the-order power. The box score moved him to 3 home runs in 2026, and the highlight reel gave San Diego another clip from a player the club has already locked in through the next decade. (espn.com) (mlb.com)