Blake Wehunt opens up about 2024 season in Red Sox system; 'Surreal' to be in Portland
Red Sox pitching prospect Blake Wehunt might be one of the biggest prospects you could find in minor league baseball at the moment. Although the 23-year-old is rising the prospect rankings, it has nothing to do with prospect status.
Listed at 6’7 and 240 pounds, Wehunt is a different look for hitters when the right-hander is staring down from the mound at them. The Georgia native began the season pitching for Low-A Salem and has recently been promoted to Double-A Portland to end the season.
“I think the season has gone pretty well so far,” Wehunt said of his 2024 season. “I started the season in Salem, so it has been a long season. I have to keep trusting what I do and the processes that I have made so far and keep moving forward. It was surreal to get the call up to Portland. We only had three days left in the season in Greenville, so I had no idea I was going to be going up.”
It is pretty common for pitchers to run into a little adversity after being promoted to a new level in minor league baseball. The level of competition is going to be better the farther you go as one might expect.
Does one ever think to factor in the umpire skill level could better or worse?
“The lineups have been a little different as you move up,” Wehunt said. “At the end of the day, it is just baseball, and it is the same game no matter what level you are at. I do think the biggest difference between Low-A and High-A are actually the umpires. In Low-A, the umpires are scared to call a ball a strike. In High-A, it was the opposite. Hitters are going to be really good regardless of what level you pitch at. I am just trying to perfect my craft and get better every start.”
If you have ever seen Wehunt pitch, you would notice something unique at the end of his delivery that you don’t see too often.
“It is actually a funny story for me to say.” Wehunt said. “When I was 11 or 12 years old, my dad would do these drills with me to where he would make me throw the ball and make me pick up a dollar off the ground. As funny as it is, I got in the routine of picking up the dollar after I finished throwing. My dad told me that if I picked the dollar up, I could keep it. So, we would be in the yard, and I would do my delivery and I would pick up the dollar after I threw and I guess it just fell into a habit and I got used to it.”
It is not the norm about the baseball world for fans to be so invested in what their minor league teams are doing. There are plenty of other successful baseball markets that could care less about who or where prospects are unless they are the top ones in the organization.
Boston is built a little differently and has a luxury to have their Triple-A affiliate be 45 minutes from Fenway and their Double-A affiliate be about 2 hours north of Fenway. That is something that is not lost to Wehunt.
“I think it speaks volumes to how the Red Sox fanbase is,” Wehunt said of fans knowing the minor leaguers. “They want to win, and they care about winning. The tradition in the organization is winning. The fact that they know who the prospects are in Low-A says a lot about the fanbase as a whole. They seem to care about the future and trust the draft picks. I think it’s awesome that they can pay attention to a minor leaguer’s career and watch them move up and be in their corner the whole way. That is one of the biggest things for a minor leaguers player. The season is long, and it is very up and down, so if you can have people that don’t even know you as a person root for you, it speaks volumes.”
