Jackson Merrill broke a 2-2 game with one swing on Aug. 10, 2026, sending a two-run homer 431 feet to dead center in the seventh inning and lifting the San Diego Padres past the Milwaukee Brewers 3-2 at Petco Park.
The loss left the Brewers at 74-45 and opened a weeklong West Coast trip with the kind of one-run defeat that stings because the chance to answer was right there. Logan Henderson had already gone deeper into a big-league game than ever before, and the Brewers still could not cash in enough offense to match it.
That is why the game landed in the Padres standings conversation immediately. The Brewers scored only twice and finished 0 for 3 with runners in scoring position, while Henderson said he felt strong enough to keep going even as his velocity dipped a little. He also said he knew the club was short in the bullpen and that his job was to give length and help win the game. Pat Murphy put it more bluntly afterward: Henderson pitched well enough to win, but the Brewers did not score enough on the road to back him up.
The decisive blow came after Ty France singled to left, then Merrill turned on a 1-1 changeup and drove it out. Henderson said he was trying to stay down and away, and that the only place he could not miss was over the middle. He knew instantly it was gone. Brandon Lockridge was later caught stealing second for the final out, a small ending to a game that had already been decided by the seventh-inning swing.
The context around the loss mattered as much as the result. The Brewers entered without Abner Uribe, Aaron Ashby and Trevor Megill because of heavy recent workloads, leaving Pat Murphy with little margin once Henderson got through the sixth. It also was the second time in Henderson's career that he recorded an out in the seventh inning, a mark that showed both how far he had stretched and how much the Brewers asked of him. On the other side, Casey Mize, Yuki Matsui, Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller covered the final seven innings and allowed only one batter over the minimum.
For the Brewers, the next few days on the West Coast will say whether this was a hard loss or the start of a deeper bullpen problem. For Henderson, it was a night in which he took the ball farther than ever, felt good enough to keep pitching and still watched one pitch decide the game.
