SAN DIEGO -- Jackson Merrill was at the center of nearly everything the Padres did on Monday night.
He made two incredible diving catches in center field. He pounded out three hits, including an eighth-inning triple. He scampered around the bases, scoring all the way from first on an errant throw by Angels starter Yusei Kikuchi. On the play, Merrill dove headfirst into home plate, then leapt to his feet, flexed and let out a roar. Petco Park erupted around him.
It wasn’t long ago that Merrill was exactly where Ethan Salas is right now.
During the Padres’ 9-5 loss to the Angels on Monday night, general manager A.J. Preller made the announcement that Salas, the team’s highly touted catching prospect, will be sidelined into July with a stress reaction in his lower back.
Preller was quick to note that the team is optimistic Salas’ development won’t be impacted and the injury won’t linger. Salas, ranked by MLB Pipeline as the team’s No. 2 prospect and No. 29 overall, merely needs time to rest and let the injury heal.
Simple enough, right? Well, try telling that to a teenage prospect who is dying to be at the center of it all, dying to be where Merrill is right now.
“That sucks,” said Merrill. “It [freaking] sucks. You’re 18, you want to do literally anything, because you have so much energy. You want to play. I bet it’s killing him right now.”
Merrill, of course, has firsthand experience.
He had only just turned 19 in April 2022, when he was sidelined with a wrist injury at nearly the same spot on the calendar. (Salas has been out since mid-April but was only recently diagnosed with the stress reaction.)
Merrill, the Padres’ first-round pick in the 2021 Draft, missed two months. Then he endured a month of a stop-start rehab in the Arizona Complex League. He didn’t rejoin Single-A Lake Elsinore until late that July.
Essentially, the same timetable as Salas.
“It sucked because I was alone in Arizona,” Merrill said. “You’re 19 years old, alone in Arizona. … You have to find your own things to do. It’s hard. You can be done at 11 a.m. because all you’re doing is your rehab.”
Salas was the top international prospect in the 2023 class. He struggled last season at High-A Fort Wayne and was off to a slow start offensively at Double-A San Antonio this year. He’s also an 18-year-old catcher, playing in leagues with players who are significantly older than him. Salas is younger than Merrill was at the time of his wrist rehab.
The two have chatted since, but Merrill says it’s not so much to offer advice. They’re friends, who spent a chunk of the offseason working together at the team’s spring complex in Peoria.
“He’ll be OK,” Merrill said. “It’s just a part of playing the game. He’ll be back. He’ll be there. It’s going to be fun.”
Look no further than Merrill for proof.
Of course, Merrill himself came off the 10-day injured list only last week after battling a right hamstring strain. He missed four weeks. The last time he played a game at Petco Park, the ink had just dried on his nine-year contract extension in early April.
Upon his return, Merrill seems to have picked up right where he left off. He now has a slash line of .467/.492/.767 across 15 games. Merrill is unequivocally one of the best young players in baseball.
And he might not be in San Diego right now, if it weren’t for that time he spent twiddling his thumbs in Arizona three years ago. Around the same time Merrill was returning from his wrist injury, the Nationals were intensely scouting the Padres’ farm system.
Preller had expressed interest in Juan Soto, and it would take an unprecedented haul of prospects to land him in a trade. Eventually, Preller would send that haul -- including James Wood, CJ Abrams and MacKenzie Gore, who are all starring for the Nationals this season. But he didn’t send Merrill.
“We had so many talented players,” Preller said in April after Merrill signed his extension. “It just speaks to the strength of the system and what we were able to do, when you can trade for Juan Soto and keep a Jackson Merrill out of that trade. And they still made a great trade.
“But I think the only time you’re probably happy that a player’s on the injured list was at that time.”
AJ Cassavell covers the Padres for MLB.com.