The heist of the year: the Padres stun Seattle with a finish nobody saw coming 
In San Diego, the Padres have been warning everyone for a while now: don’t write them off until the final out. After Wednesday night, you’d be a fool not to believe them. Down by six after five innings and still staring at a four-run deficit with one out left in the game, they pulled off a ridiculous comeback to win 7-6 in a Petco Park that was absolutely rocking. The man at the centre of it all was Jackson Merrill, who donned the superhero cape in the field before delivering the final blow at the plate.
A ninth inning that went completely off the rails
The rally started with a walk to Manny Machado against Seattle closer Andres Munoz. Gavin Sheets followed with a double down the line, and Ty France chipped in with an infield hit. To keep the pressure on, manager Craig Stammen brought Fernando Tatis Jr. off the bench on his day off. His sacrifice fly brought up two outs for the Mariners, but the Padres still had life. Luis Campusano and Ramon Laureano then strung together singles, setting the stage perfectly for Jackson Merrill against lefty reliever Jose A. Ferrer.
Down 0-2, Merrill stayed alive and eventually sent a nasty pitch slicing right down the left-field line. “I just threw the bat at the ball and hoped for the best,” the hero of the night admitted. It kissed the line by inches. Campusano scored the tying run, Laureano came home straight after, and that was that. The place erupted, and Merrill was buried under a pile of teammates at home plate. “That’s exactly what a great team does. We never quit, not until the job’s done,” he said after the game.
The robbery job on Julio Rodriguez
The crazy part? Merrill’s game-winning hit wasn’t even his best moment of the night. While San Diego starter Randy Vasquez was getting roughed up early, the outfielder saved his bacon in spectacular fashion in the third inning. On a monster blast from Julio Rodriguez that looked destined for the centre-field seats, Merrill tracked it back, leapt, and reached over the wall to steal a home run.
Given the height of the fence there and the twisted shape of his left arm as he made the catch, the play is already doing the rounds everywhere. “One hundred percent, that’s the best defensive play I’ve ever made in my life,” the youngster confirmed. A huge save that kept the Padres on life support, before Xander Bogaerts trimmed the gap later with the 200th home run of his career to start the fightback.
Something big is brewing in San Diego
Something strange is happening in California. San Diego opened the season stumbling around with an ugly 1-4 record. Since then? They’ve been flying. That’s seven straight wins now, 10 in their last 11, and this is already their third walk-off win in less than a week.
“We keep telling the guys every day it’s not about whether we’re going to win, it’s about who’s going to be the hero tonight,” Stammen said with a grin. On Wednesday, it was Merrill. With a mentality like that, good luck finding the team that can slow them down right now.
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