A year ago, when the San Diego Padres decided to give their starting center fielder job to a 20-year-old rookie who hadn’t played a single inning at the position as a professional, Jackson Merrill’s MLB debut came and went without much fanfare.
An 0-for-3 showing at the plate with four putouts in the field rendered him a footnote in a 5–2 Padres defeat to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Seoul. Few could have predicted the breakout from Merrill that was about to unfold—and how fitting his relative anonymity on that day would be for the narrative of the season.
