Jackson Merrill hits 7th homer in 10-game span

SAN DIEGO — Jackson Merrill insists he’s not doing anything new or different. Seriously. OK, sure, maybe he has made a couple minor mechanical tweaks. But he’s always doing that. It’s not like he is doing anything with the explicit purpose of trying to hit for power.

And yet, look at these results: In the past 10 games, Merrill has homered seven times. His most recent was a Statcast-projected 440-foot moonshot off the Petco Park batter’s eye — a three-run drive in the fourth inning that sent the Padres to a 6-4 victory over the Brewers on Saturday afternoon.

Ha-Seong Kim and Kyle Higashioka also went deep, and right-hander Randy Vásquez tossed five scoreless frames as San Diego earned its fourth straight victory.

It all started with Merrill, who became the youngest player in franchise history to homer seven times in a 10-game span. He’s the second youngest to reach double digits in a season, behind only Fernando Tatis Jr.

Quite a power surge for a 21-year-old rookie who, frankly, entered the big leagues with question marks about whether he’d be able to hit for power. No one ever doubted Merrill’s elite bat-to-ball skills and his ability to spray line drives.

But this kind of power display? This early in his career?

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “When you have an efficient swing, you grow into your power. And one of the things I first evaluated or saw with Jackson was a guy that had a really good swing — and an idea how to use it. Which can be rare, period. But also rare at a younger age.”

And here’s the important part: Merrill hasn’t sacrificed any other aspect of his skill set in order to tap into that power. He’s still doing things like spraying opposite-field singles and working 13-pitch at-bats. Merrill finished 3-for-3 with a walk on Saturday and did both of those things.

“He’s got a good middle-of-the-field approach, and I think that’s what’s going to make him a good hitter,” hitting coach Victor Rodriguez said prior to the game. “[Some young players] lose sight of the things that they do well. He hasn’t done that.”

Rodriguez — a veteran of more than four decades in the game — says that particular approach is well beyond Merrill’s years. It’s an approach veteran hitters often struggle to grasp. Yet Merrill is mashing titanic home runs — and he’s also content not to swing for them.

“When you see a guy do that, then you start to worry,” Rodriguez said of Merrill’s homer barrage. “Is this guy going to stick with the power? Or is he going to get back to staying in the big part of the field, getting his hits, getting his doubles? Then, when they make mistakes middle-in, take your chances.”

While Merrill is adamant that he’s not doing anything new mechanically to access his power, he did note a subtle change in mindset. Since his arrival in the big leagues on Opening Day, he says he’s become more aware of when to sell out for a mistake pitch.

He picked his spot on Saturday — early in the count, two men aboard, one out.

“I’ve been learning when to take my shots and when not to,” Merrill said. “… In that situation, first and second, you’re trying to drive somebody in, not trying to just get a little single. So I take my shot.”

Sure enough, Merrill got a fastball right down the middle from Brewers starter Carlos Rodriguez, and he unloaded. At 440 feet, it was easily the longest home run of his career in the big leagues, according to Statcast. He thinks it was probably the longest one he’s ever hit. But …

“It don’t matter,” Merrill said. “I don’t think I’ve ever looked at distance, because if it goes over the fence, it’s a homer.”

And if it doesn’t? Merrill is probably hitting it hard somewhere. With his performance Saturday, Merrill raised his batting average to .290 and his OPS to .771. He has played a standout center field — despite having never played the position at any level prior to this season.

At the halfway mark of the Padres season, Merrill is making a strong case for NL Rookie of the Year, although he seems to feel the same way about that as he does about home run distances.

“I don’t even care about that stuff,” Merrill said recently. “I couldn’t care less about Rookie of the Year voting or All-Star voting. I care about our team right here. I care about winning.”