Portland Pounds Out 21 Runs on 32 (!) Hits

The Padres’ AAA Portland affiliate is the worst team in the 16-team Pacific Coast League, at 39-62.

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.