The San Diego Padres scored their biggest win of the season on Saturday, defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers for the second straight game, moving into first place in the National League West with just 32 games remaining.
The win was the fifth straight overall for San Diego, who go for a three-game sweep of their Southern California rivals on Sunday afternoon at Petco Park.
The Padres, who have never won a World Series since joining the NL as an expansion team in 1969, have won the National League West only five times and not at all since 2006 — which was also the last year in which the Padres and Dodgers faced each other in the final six weeks of the season with first place at stake.
But the celebration for the Padres on Saturday was short-lived.
Following the game, the team announced that last year’s NL Rookie of the Year runner-up, 22-year-old outfielder Jackson Merrill, would need to go on the injured list for the third time this season.
The cause this time was announced as a left ankle sprain.
The move was not entirely unexpected. Merrill has not appeared in a game since Aug. 17, when he injured the ankle in the finale of an earlier three-game series against the Dodgers.
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In that three-game series at Dodger Stadium, the Padres were swept and stood two games off the Dodgers’ pace atop the division after the series. But since then, San Diego has won five of six while Los Angeles has dropped four of its last six.
Merrill has struggled in his sophomore season, thanks largely to his multiple injuries. His .729 OPS this season so far is down 97 points from the .826 he recorded last year. But the Padres would obviously rather have their 2021 first-round draft pick in the lineup than on the IL.
His stint this time is retroactive to Aug. 20. The Padres expect him to be healed and ready to play when he becomes eligible for activation on Aug. 30, when the Padres will have just 25 games to — they hope — dethrone the Dodgers in the NL West.
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