Merrill homers twice, five relievers lock down Padres' win over Phillies

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Jul 12, 2025

Published in Baseball

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SAN DIEGO — The first half of the season concludes Sunday, and the Padres now have evidence for their professed faith that Jackson Merrill will return to being a significant contributor in the second half

With a game that was reminiscent of how he finished last season and began this one, Merrill blasted his way out of a slump with a pair of game-tying home runs on Saturday to do the heavy lifting in a 5-4 win over the Phillies.

Jeremiah Estrada, pitching for the third day in a row and fourth time in five days, worked a perfect ninth inning for his third save of the season to secure a winning homestand for the Padres.

His setting down the top of the Phillies’ order ended a day in which the Padres otherwise relied on lower-leverage relievers Bryan Hoeing, Wandy Peralta, David Morgan and Yuki Matsui to patch together nine innings.

Given that they were going to be without the services of at least three of their four best relief pitchers due to their workload, Saturday was probably going to have to go a certain way for the Padres to win.

They were going to need to score more than they usually did.

And four runs off Zack Wheeler is a pretty good night at the plate for any team.

Just two teams had done so (three times) against the Phillies right-hander this season.

The Padres didn’t score at all in eight innings against him on June 30.

Wheeler, who entered the game with the National League’s second-lowest ERA (2.17) and lowest WHIP (0.85), was not quite at his sharpest Saturday.

And Merrill was far more locked in than he had been in a while.

He tied the game 2-2 in the Padres’ three-run second inning and tied it 4-4 in the sixth.

His first home run was on a 98-mph 1-0 fastball in the heart of the strike zone. The second was on a 95-mph fastball just above the zone.

Merrill had made it a habit of swinging through high fastballs in recent weeks. And he was not doing damage on ones down the middle either, as he had hit .094 (5 for 53) in the 15 games leading up to Saturday.

With his two home runs — the first to left field and the second to right-center — Merrill joined Buster Posey (2021) and Cody Bellinger (2017) as the only players to hit multiple home runs against Wheeler in a game.

That would have been quite the accomplishment even if he hadn’t entered the game hitless in his previous 24 plate appearances.

Wheeler breezed through the first inning in eight pitches and took the mound in the second with a 2-0 lead.

Gavin Sheets greeted him with a double to right field.

And with one out, something took place that had not in a month and half.

Merrill stepped to the plate and, for the first time since May 27, sent a ball over the wall.

That tied the game 2-2, and the Padres were not done, in one of the most unlikely of ways.

Jake Cronenworth flared a ball to right-center field that fell in front of diving center fielder Brandon Marsh and then bounced off his glove, allowing Cronenworth to jog into second with a double. Then, after Trenton Brooks struck out, catcher Martin Maldonado singled on a flare to right field.

The Padres took a 5-4 lead in the seventh inning on singles by Fernando Tatis Jr. and Luis Arraez and a sacrifice fly by Machado.

Yu Darvish allowed four runs in 4 2/3 innings in his second start of the season. His 83 pitches were 19 more than he threw in his debut Monday.

With his pitch count limited to some extent, it was going to take Darvish being pretty sharp to get through six innings.

Even then, the Padres were going to have to rely on their lower-leverage relievers in higher-leverage situations.

Estrada, Jason Adam, Adrian Morejón and Robert Suarez for the second straight game. Adam’s 47 appearances are second most in the major leagues behind the Giants’ Taylor Rogers. Morejón has pitched in 46 games, Estrada in 45 and Suarez in 43. Just one team has even three pitchers who have worked that often and no other team has more than two pitchers to have made 45 appearances.

The desire to limit his bullpen’s exposure is also why Padres manager Mike Shildt kept Darvish in as long as he did — after the right-hander had loaded the bases on a single and two walks in the fifth inning. It was not before Emundo Sosa’s single drove in two runs and put the Phillies up 4-3 that Darvish was pulled.

Hoeing got the final out of the fifth and got through the sixth with help from Manny Machado.

The Padres third baseman went to his knees to grab a hard grounder and start a double play that ended the sixth with runners on second and third. In the seventh, Machado ran up to field a dribbler and threw out Edmundo Sosa, preventing what would have been a cruel inherited runner scoring against Morgan.

The Padres entered Saturday’s game with a 6-4 record in July.

They had used all four of their back-end relievers in the past five of those victories and two of them (Morejón and Suarez) in the first of victory this month.

That victory was on July 2. And that was the last time the Padres led by more than two runs. Further, they have led by more than one run for just two innings in that span.