Padres Promote Fuentes; Blanks Begins Rehab

As the season winds down, it seems that the Padres front office has slowly started to move into action as another young face will be making their Major League Debut with the Padres this season. The sixth rookie to make such a debut, actually. With the recent designation of starting pitcher Edinson Volquez and now speculation of Carlos Quentin potentially hitting the DL, the Padres have promoted outfielder Reymond Fuentes to the big league club. Fuentes’ agent broke the news on Twitter earlier this morning.
Fuentes, a 22-year old 1st round draft pick by the Boston Red Sox back in 2009, has been tearing it up the minors this season with both Double-A San Antonio and Triple-A Tucson. For The Missions this season, Fuentes sported a .316 batting average with 6 homeruns and 35 RBI. Fuentes was promoted to The Tucson Padres in early August and has since been carrying a .418 batting average with 8 RBI.
Fuentes, one of three Padres representatives at this summer’s All-Stars Futures Game, was not initially included in the team’s 40-man roster and only played one game with the big league club during Spring Training – he had one at-bat that resulted in a single.
In other Padres outfielder news, outfielder Kyle Blanks began his official rehab assignment with Triple-A Tucson Sunday evening by joining the club as they played the Tacoma Rainiers. Although Blanks did not appear in a game last night, he is scheduled to get some time in today and in the next few days to get his feet back underneath him.
With Blanks in Tucson and Fuentes in Phoenix, the make-up of this team continues to look starkly different from the team put together on Opening Day. Fuentes will be available Monday evening for the first of a three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, and could make his Major League Debut as soon as tonight.
The Padres will hope to play spoiler and try to knockout the Diamondbacks who are still barely clinging on in the National League Wild-Card race. First pitch for tonight’s contest is slated for 6:40pm at Chase Field, where righty Tyson Ross will be taking on Brandon McCarthy and the D-Backs.