The San Diego Padres trimmed down the roster more on Tuesday, optioning down OF Cedric Hunter to Triple-A Tucson and reassigning pitchers Colt Hynes, Rob Musgrave, and Casey Kelly to minor league camp.

Cedric Hunter was drafted by the Padres in the 3rd round of the 2006 draft and has not yet made his mark in the Padres minor league system. He has been on fire in this big league spring camp though, hitting .455 with 4 doubles, a home run, and 9 RBI. Hopefully this hot start can spring board him into the season at Tucson.
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Source: YardBarker.com

The Padres added right-handed pitchers Simon Castro, Brandon Gomes, Jeremy Hefner and Evan Scribner, outfielder Cedric Hunter, catcher Luis Martinez and infielder Jeudy Valdez. All the players were placed on the 40 man roster so that they could avoid being claimed in the Rule 5 Draft.

Simon Castro was rated the second best prospect in the Padres Organization and looks to start the season in AAA this year.
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You wouldn’t know it from their game against 48-54 Las Vegas Sunday night, as they absolutely destroyed the 51′s by a whopping 21-4 score.

What gets me isn’t so much the 21 runs–it happens–but the 32 hits the Beavers put up.

32 hits! The team went 32-for-57 (they hit into two double plays)! That’s a .561 average!

If that’s not enough, consider that every player in the lineup except Lance Zawadzki got three or more hits.

Cedric Hunter was 4-for-7. Craig Stansberry was 4-for-6. Mike Baxter went 4-for-7. Kyle Phillips and Wily Mo Pena were both 5-for-6 with a walk. That’s right, the first five hitters in the Beavers lineup had at least four hits each.

From there, Nick Green was 3-for-7, Zawadzki 1-for-6, Chris Stewart 3-for-6, and Luis Durango 3-for-5 with a walk.

Stewart hit the club’s only home run.

Through it all, Cory Luebke threw eight superb innings, allowing two runs on five hits and two walks while striking out eight. The usual Aaron Poreda walk-fest occurred in the ninth and brought the score from 21-2 to 21-4, but if there was ever a game to pitch Poreda in, this was it.

It’s great to see the bats wake up in this sort of huge way, and perhaps even better to see Luebke (2.57 ERA in three starts) finally giving the Padres a reliable Triple-A arm.