{"id":405685,"date":"2026-07-20T21:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T21:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/405685\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T21:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T21:07:09","slug":"padres-pregame-ty-france-cleaning-up-xander-bogaerts-dropped-in-lineup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/405685\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres pregame: Ty France cleaning up, Xander Bogaerts dropped in lineup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Padres will ride hot hands on Monday (4:15 p.m. on Padres.TV) to start a four-game series in Atlanta, with Jackson Merrill remaining in the two-hole and Ty France batting clean-up.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">First of four in Atlanta. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/iyaPayo9Mv\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/iyaPayo9Mv<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 San Diego Padres (@Padres) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Padres\/status\/2079295524352741531?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">July 20, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Both Merrill and France hit two home runs each in Sunday\u2019s salvage job in Kansas City.<\/p>\n<p>Merrill had been hitless in three straight games before driving in four runs on four hits to lift his batting line to .221\/.277\/.363.<\/p>\n<p>Monday is his ninth straight game in the two-hole after spending a spell in the bottom half of the lineup.<\/p>\n<p>France is hitting clean-up for just the fifth time this season. He\u2019s hitting .458\/.500\/1.083 with four homers and nine RBIs during a seven-game hitting streak.<\/p>\n<p>The Padres had also been trying Xander Bogaerts in the three-hole, but the 33-year-old veteran is hitting .132\/.244\/.237 over his last 10 games.<\/p>\n<p>Bogaerts will drop down to sixth on Monday and serve as the designated hitter as Sung-Mun Song (.655 OPS) will man shortstop and bat ninth.<\/p>\n<p>Song is hitting .302\/.400\/.442 over his last 20 games.<\/p>\n<p>Gavin Sheets (.732 OPS) will play left field and bat fifth. Jake Cronenworth (.569 OPS) is back in the lineup, at second and in the seven-hole, and Freddy Fermin (.523 OPS) will catch and bat eighth.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday\u2019s win upped the Padres\u2019 playoff odds from 8% to 9.7% at Fangraphs.com. They begin the week 2 \u00bd games out of the NL\u2019s last wild-card spot with five teams to overtake to get back into playoff position.<\/p>\n<p>The Padres swept the Braves last month in the midst of Atlanta\u2019s 9-14 June. The Braves are 8-7 to start July and atop the NL East.<\/p>\n<p>Here is how the Braves will line up for Game 1:<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">New series on deck!<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/BravesCountry?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">#BravesCountry<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/nC0pfM9PdA\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/nC0pfM9PdA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Atlanta Braves (@Braves) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Braves\/status\/2079284583921492196?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">July 20, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Monday\u2019s pitching matchup<\/p>\n<p>Padres LHP JP Sears (2-2, 5.03 ERA)<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s making his fifth start after starting the year at Triple-A El Paso, where he had a 7.92 ERA in 63\u2154 innings. Sears beat the Braves in his first start of the season with 5\u2154 innings of two-run ball. To date, Sears has a 17-to-8 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 19\u2154 innings. He has yet to complete six innings in a start in the majors this year.<\/p>\n<p>Here is how Sears has fared against current Braves:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-article_inline lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/sears-braves.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"9969262\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Braves RHP Bryce Elder (5-6, 4.12 ERA)<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old has an 11.00 ERA over his last four starts (18 IP), as he\u2019s allowed eight home runs over that stretch. Elder has a 3.34 ERA in 10 starts at home, compared to a 5.31 ERA on the road. He has a 9.82 ERA in two starts against the Padres, the last in 2024 (3 IP, 6 ER).<\/p>\n<p>Here is how Elder has fared against current Padres:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-article_inline lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/elder-pads.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"9969263\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Padres will ride hot hands on Monday (4:15 p.m. on Padres.TV) to start a four-game series in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,1334,74,76,75,2611,127],"class_list":["post-405685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}