{"id":2507561,"date":"2026-07-18T18:55:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T18:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2507561"},"modified":"2026-07-18T18:55:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T18:55:31","slug":"padres-pregame-freddy-fermin-returns-to-lineup-royals-pitching-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/padres-pregame-freddy-fermin-returns-to-lineup-royals-pitching-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres pregame: Freddy Fermin returns to lineup, Royals pitching plans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Royals will see a familiar face behind the plate on Saturday. The Padres will not see a familiar arm.<\/p>\n<p>Right-hander <strong>Stephen Kolek<\/strong> is making a rehab start instead of returning directly from the family medical leave list to the Royals rotation. Meantime, <strong>Freddy Fermin<\/strong> \u2014 whom the Padres acquired when they sent Kolek and <strong>Ryan Bergert<\/strong> to Kansas City last year \u2014 is starting behind the plate a day after returning from the 10-day injured list for a head contusion.<\/p>\n<p>The game behind the plate will be Fermin\u2019s first since July 17. He served as a the DH three times while on a rehab assignment with Triple-A El Paso to give his head a break from all the foul tips off his mask.<\/p>\n<p>Saturday\u2019s first pitch is at 1:10 p.m. on Padres.TV.<\/p>\n<p>Fermin (.520 OPS) will bat ninth. Meantime, <strong>Gavin Sheets<\/strong> (.738 OPS) will serve as the left field and bat fifth and<strong> Ty France<\/strong> (.830 OPS) will play first and bat sixth.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Saturday starters. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/TcxApSa6nO\">pic.twitter.com\/TcxApSa6nO<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 San Diego Padres (@Padres) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Padres\/status\/2078527276397023242?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 18, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Friday\u2019s loss dropped the Padres (48-49) a game under .500. They are 3 \u00bd games out of a wild-card spot, with five teams to overtake to get into playoff position.<\/p>\n<p>Here is how the Royals, who snapped a five-game skid on Friday, will line up for Game 2:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Powder Blue Saturday. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/aJVpfcYZOw\">pic.twitter.com\/aJVpfcYZOw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Kansas City Royals (@Royals) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Royals\/status\/2078510704584192088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 18, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h4>Saturday\u2019s pitching matchup<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Padres RHP Griffin Canning (1-7, 6.47 ERA)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He has a 6.56 ERA in 10 starts and a 6.00 ERA in three appearances behind an opener. He is 0-6 as a starter and 1-1 as the bulk reliever. Canning has a 3.46 ERA over his last three appearances (13 IP). Canning has a 1.48 ERA in five starts (30 1\/3 IP) against the Royals, the last in 2024 (5 2\/3 IP, 0 ER).<\/p>\n<p>Here is how Canning has fared against current Padres:<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>Royals RHP Randy Dobnak (0-0, 1.86 ERA)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s getting the start because Kolek will get a tune-up start in the minors. Kolek (4-3, 4.50 ERA) has not pitched since July 2 and made his previous start before that on June 21 as he went on paternity leave on June 26. Kolek\u2019s daughter, Faye, was born seven weeks premature.<\/p>\n<p>Dobnak, 31, threw four innings of two-run ball on July 2 (64 pitches) and 5 2\/3 shutout innings on July 8 (95 pitches).<\/p>\n<p>He has not faced the Padres and only has history with three current Padres:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>DH <strong>Miguel Andujar<\/strong> (1-for-3, HR)<\/li>\n<li>SS<strong> Xander Bogaerts<\/strong> (0-for-1, BB)<\/li>\n<li>INF <strong>Luis Rengifo<\/strong> (1-for-2)<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.sandiegouniontribune.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Royals will see a familiar face behind the plate on Saturday. The Padres will not see a familiar arm. Right-hander Stephen Kolek is making a rehab start instead of returning directly from the family medical leave list to the Royals rotation. Meantime, Freddy Fermin \u2014 whom the Padres acquired when they sent Kolek and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2507562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[308544,25866,347943,21848],"class_list":["post-2507561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Padres-pregame-Freddy-Fermin-returns-to-lineup-Royals-pitching-plans.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2507561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2507563,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507561\/revisions\/2507563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2507562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2507561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2507561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2507561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}