{"id":171099,"date":"2025-08-24T06:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T06:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/171099\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T06:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T06:54:09","slug":"padres-place-jackson-merrill-on-10-day-injured-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/171099\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres Place Jackson Merrill On 10-Day Injured List"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Padres announced this evening that they\u2019ve placed outfielder Jackson Merrill<\/a><\/strong> on the 10-day injured list with a left ankle sprain. The move was retroactive to August 20th, and no corresponding move to replace Merrill on the roster will be announced until tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Merrill, 22, already hasn\u2019t appeared in a game since August 17th due to his ailing ankle and now won\u2019t be back for at least the 29th. It\u2019s been a frustrating sophomore season for the outfielder, as he\u2019s been limited to just 91 games between his current ankle injury, an early-season hamstring strain, and an IL stint for concussion-like symptoms back in June. Even when Merrill has been healthy enough to take the field for the Padres, he\u2019s not quite looked like himself. The youngster\u2019s rookie year saw him hit .292\/.326\/.500 (130 wRC+) with 61 extra-base hits (including 24 homers) and 16 steals in 19 chances.<\/p>\n

That was enough to get him plenty of accolades: he finished second only to Paul Skenes<\/a><\/strong> in NL Rookie of the Year voting and nabbed an All-Star appearance, a Silver Slugger award, and a ninth-place finish in NL MVP voting. That banner year created plenty of optimism that Merrill would anchor the middle of San Diego\u2019s lineup for years to come, and those hopes were further bolstered when he signed a nine-year extension<\/a> with the organization earlier this year. Unfortunately, his numbers simply haven\u2019t kept pace with last year. He\u2019s slashed just .261\/.317\/.413 (105 wRC+) in 386 trips to the plate with 31 extra-base hits (including nine homers) and just one steal in three attempts.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s perfectly solid production, of course. It\u2019s just a far cry from what Merrill did last year, and for a Padres clubbed locked in a tight NL West race with the Dodgers a healthy and effective Merrill would be a game changer. Perhaps that\u2019s what has convinced the Padres to finally bite the bullet and place their center fielder on the shelf; giving him some additional time off to rest his ailing ankle could help him heal up for the September stretch run and into the postseason. If a healthy Merrill could play closer to his .357 xwOBA, which is in the same league as stars like Alex Bregman<\/a><\/strong> and Byron Buxton<\/a><\/strong>, then sitting him down for another week in order to get him healthy would be well worth doing.<\/p>\n

Deadline addition Ramon Laureano<\/a><\/strong> has been handling center field in Merrill\u2019s absence. That\u2019s left an outfield corner open for Gavin Sheets<\/a><\/strong>, while Ryan O\u2019Hearn<\/a><\/strong> has settled into a first base and DH role alongside Luis Arraez<\/a><\/strong>. With Laureano and O\u2019Hearn in the mix following last month\u2019s deadline, the Padres\u2019 lineup is much better-equipped to handle Merrill\u2019s absence than it was earlier in the year with players like Jason Heyward<\/a><\/strong> and Oscar Mercado<\/a><\/strong> in the outfield mix. With a fairly solid outfield mix even without Merrill on the roster, it\u2019s unclear what direction the Padres will go for tomorrow\u2019s corresponding transaction. Speculatively speaking, an infielder like Mason McCoy<\/a><\/strong> or Will Wagner<\/a><\/strong> could make some sense given that both Xander Bogaerts<\/a><\/strong> and Jake Cronenworth<\/a><\/strong> have missed a game recently with day-to-day injuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Padres announced this evening that they\u2019ve placed outfielder Jackson Merrill on the 10-day injured list with a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":171100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[7791,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-171099","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-jackson-merrill","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115082432730881734","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}