SAN DIEGO -- Jac Caglianone didn’t feel the ball hit his glove.
Jackson Merrill crushed a hanging changeup from Royals reliever Lucas Erceg. As the bail sailed over right field, it looked destined to clear the fence for a two-run homer that would have broken the deadlock that the Royals and Padres were stuck in in the bottom of the 8th inning on Sunday afternoon at Petco Park.
Caglianone had other ideas.
Tracking the ball was the easy part. It was late in the afternoon, so the sun wasn’t much of a factor. The challenge for Caglianone -- a rookie in both the literal sense and in the sense that he has played the outfield only since late April -- was actually getting in position to make a play on it. He made sure he knew where the wall was behind him, and just started running back. The ball came down on the other side of the wall, and Caglianone took his leap.
“Thankfully, I timed it well,” he said after the Royals’ eventual 3-2 loss on a Padres walk-off.
There was a brief moment of confusion, with both the crowd and Caglianone himself unsure of what had actually happened. But he landed back on his feet, looked down at his glove, and said to himself, “Oh, surprise.”
He came down with it.
“I had no idea if he was going to be able to get it,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “But it was a tremendous play.”
Caglianone, ranked by MLB Pipeline as the Royals’ No. 1 prospect and a big leaguer for less than three weeks, jumped up and down with the excitement of a rookie who just made the defensive play of his life -- the first home run he’s ever robbed. He quickly realized he still needed to throw over to first since there was still a runner on base.
When he got back to the dugout, 2-2 tie still intact, Caglianone was greeted by high-fives from his teammates. He had given them a chance.
Merrill stayed on the field and watched the replay. All he could do was tip his hat.
“Unbelievable,” Merrill said of Caglianone’s catch. “For someone that doesn't play the outfield that much, too, that was unbelievable. So props to him.”
The two share some familiarity. They’re the same age (22) and were in the same Draft class coming out of high school. Merrill was selected 27th overall by Padres out of Severna Park High School in Maryland. Caglianone was a highly touted pitcher, the No. 4-ranked left-hander in the class, until an injury weeks before the Draft required Tommy John surgery and all but cemented his path to the University of Florida as he went undrafted.
“He’s killing it; he’s a great player,” Caglianone said of Merrill. “... It’s really cool to see. I wish him nothing but the best.”
Merrill, like Caglianone, came up as an infielder before making the transition to the outfield. He knows what it’s like, even if their experiences aren’t an apples-to-apples comparison.
“He's got a big body, big frame,” Merrill said. “So it's a little different with him transferring to the outfield from first base than it was with me from shortstop. And he's doing it in right field, which is one of the hardest spots across the outfield.”
Right field makes sense for Caglianone. It gives him a chance to show off the arm -- the one that flirted with triple digits on the mound his senior year at Florida and earned him the 2024 John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year Award before the Royals took him sixth overall in the 2024 Draft -- in a way that first base never could. He’s still raw at the position, but it’s coming along.
One inning before his catch, Caglianone had a throw home clocked by Statcast at 104.1 mph, the third-fastest throw by an MLB outfielder this year. (Gavin Sheets scored the tying run despite the strong throw.)
“I’m feeling good,” Caglianone said. “I like having the opportunity to let the arm eat. Just going to build off this week and carry it over into next week.”
But does he feel like his catch Sunday is a good starting point to build off of?
Caglianone smirked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’d say so.”