Jackson Merrill has hit the ground running since coming off the injured list and last night did it literally.
But the Padres’ bullpen continued to leak, and the Padres lost 9-5 to the Angels on Monday night.
This time, it was closer Robert Suarez who could not do his job.
“Just had a bad day today,” Suarez said. “I couldn’t close out the game.”
With a two run lead that Merrill helped build and preserve, Suarez simply could not throw strikes.
“The walks pretty much made work of it,” Suarez said. “And I just couldn’t close the game out.”
He struck out the first batter he faced before giving up a single on a ground ball up the middle. And then he walked four straight batters to make it a 5-5 game.
With Suarez having thrown 33 pitches (16 of them strikes), manager Mike Shildt had seen enough.
Alek Jacob came in, struck out a batter and then surrendered a grand slam to Taylor Ward.
The bullpen has allowed 29 (28 earned) runs over 15⅓ innings in its past four games.
All but three of the previous 23 runs in this skid had been surrendered by pitchers the Padres don’t generally count on in high-leverage situations.
Suarez, though, is their highest-leverage reliever. He had converted all 15 of his save opportunities, allowed one run in 17⅔ innings and walked just four of the 61 batters he had faced before Monday.
“We’ve seen a lot of greatness from Robert Suarez, to the point of borderline actually being spoiled,” Shildt said. “Some days, you’ve got to prove you’re human.”
It was an an inhumane end to a night that seemed destined to be recalled for Merrill’s heroics.
The Padres’ center fielder, who missed a month with a strained right hamstring and has hit .609 in his five games since coming back, ran in 40 feet and dove forward to snare a sinking line drive inches before it hit the grass to save two runs and preserve the Padres’ lead over the Angels in the seventh inning.
He had run 57 feet and dove to take away extra bases from Zach Neto in the fifth inning.
Merrill also extended his streak of multiple-hit games to six by hitting singles in his first two at-bats and a triple in the last one.
The second single drove in the Padres’ first run, the triple drove in the last run.
Said Shildt: “Talk about dominating on both sides of the ball.”
Merrill was not in the mood to discuss his catch or anything else.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I’m not going to talk about it. You guys know my main goal. We didn’t accomplish it tonight.”
The comeback by the Angels also kept left-hander Yusei Kikuchi from falling to 0-5 despite allowing just two earned runs in six innings, which actually dropped his ERA a smidge to 3.72. It would have been his third loss this season in a game in which he has turned in a quality start.
This one would have been on him, as he bobbled and then threw away what may have been a chance at his first victory.
Kikuchi had an easy play to end the third inning with what would have been a 2-1 lead after two-out singles by Luis Arraez, Manny Machado and Merrill had brought in one run. But Kikuchi bobbled Xander Bogaerts’ chopper back to the mound, then picked up the ball and hurriedly threw low and wide to first base. As the ball bounced around in foul territory toward right field, Machado ran home from second and Merrill ran home from first to flip the lead.
Fernando Tatis Jr.’s 10th home run of the season, a 424-foot blast to center field on the second pitch in the bottom of the fifth inning, extended the Padres’ advantage to 4-2.
That meant the Padres were still up when a gaffe in the sixth led to an Angels run.
After switch-hitter Yoan Moncada doubled and Jorge Soler walked with one out, Taylor Ward grounded a ball to shortstop that might have resulted in an inning-ending double play had the relay by second baseman Jake Cronenworth not been well wide of first and bounced to the side wall. That allowed Moncada to score and ended Padres starter Michael King’s night after 91 pitches.
Jeremiah Estrada finished the top of the sixth with a strikeout and began the seventh with two more before he hit Anderson and surrendered a single to Zach Neto.
Shildt went to left-hander Adrián Morejón with the Angels’ lone left-handed batter, Nolan Schanuel, due up.
It was Merrill’s dive on the liner by Schanuel, which according to StatCats had an 89% hit probability, that saved Morejón.
Jason Adam began the eighth inning with a walk before striking out the next two batters and getting a groundout.
After Merrill’s triple led off the bottom of the eighth and Bogaerts drove him in with a sacrifice fly, Robert Suarez embarked on arguably his worst outing since his first one in the major leagues back in 2022.
On that night, he walked three batters and hit one and was charged with three runs while trying to protect a 2-0 lead at Arizona.
He allowed five runs in the eighth inning of a game in 2023, when he was the setup man to Josh Hader.
His only other four-run inning was last Sept. 5 against the Tigers when he surrendered a game-winning grand slam in the ninth.
“This guy has been absolutely lights out for us, last year, obviously this year,” Shildt said. “… One of those days. He’ll be back, and we are confident he’ll be just fine.”
