Standing in the clubhouse after the game, Elly De La Cruz flexes his arms and puffs out his chest. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s Thor!\u201d De La Cruz shouts. \u201cHe\u2019s Thor.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s talking about Blake Dunn. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s a lot to celebrate after Saturday\u2019s 7-6 win in 11 innings over the Cardinals. De La Cruz had just played one of his best games of the season. I\u2019m on the left side of the Reds\u2019 clubhouse, asking a few players about Dunn. De La Cruz hears the name, gets hyped, joins the interview and points to Dunn.<\/p>\n
\u201cThor!\u201d De La Cruz says. \u201cLook at him.\u201d <\/p>\n
Dunn has the beard and the muscles. He\u2019s also a really easy guy to pull for in that clubhouse as a self-made player who wasn\u2019t a top prospect and has had to compete for every start he has received. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s playing well,\u201d Spencer Steer said. \u201cThe opportunity is there for him right now. He\u2019s taking advantage of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Dunn delivered a sliding catch that saved a run in the top of the 11th, and the infield single that ended the game in walk-off fashion. Just as notable was the fact that he was in in the lineup against a righty in both games of the doubleheader on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Dunn is hitting .356 with a .941 OPS this season in 37 big league at-bats. With top-notch elite speed and impact defensive ability, Dunn is helping the Reds in a lot of different areas so far. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat he\u2019s doing so well is he\u2019s just playing the game,\u201d Terry Francona said. \u201cHe\u2019s not trying to do too much. He\u2019s just playing the game. He has done a terrific job.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the Reds\u2019 lineup, eight spots are accounted for right now (Elly, Bleday, Steer, Stewart, Su\u00e1rez, Lowe, Stephenson, McLain). <\/p>\n
The position that\u2019s up in the air is the center field job with Dunn, TJ Friedl, Will Benson and Dane Myers all options to play there.<\/p>\n
What the Reds really need right now is a center fielder to step up and take that job. <\/p>\n
Up until very recently, Friedl and Benson were splitting starts in center field vs. RHP (the other would be on the bench), and Dunn and Dane Myers would both start games vs. LHP (platooning with the Friedl\/Benson combo and Nathaniel Lowe). <\/p>\n
Over the last three days, after turning some heads with his production vs. LHP, Dunn is getting his opportunities against right-handed pitching. There are lineups with both Friedl and Benson on the bench, and with Dunn starting. This is Dunn\u2019s first real chance to be an every day player in the big leagues. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s still so early in the season for him after spending all of April in Triple-A, and this is also Dunn\u2019s fifth stint in the big leagues. We\u2019ve seen him before at this level, and he doesn\u2019t necessarily have the highest ceiling. We\u2019ll see how this goes. But there are tangible areas where Dunn is a better player than he was when he debuted in 2024 and when he made the Opening Day roster in 2025. <\/p>\n
Dunn has reinvented himself over the last 12 months. Most of that has to do with his process, his preparation and his mindset. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s the top of the 11th inning on Saturday. Dunn is talking to himself in the outfield. <\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t do that last year. He does now. <\/p>\n
Last year, Dunn felt like he was having trouble putting it behind when he had a bad moment. He\u2019d take bad at-bats into the outfield with him. He\u2019d take missed plays in the field with him to the plate. Negative results snowballed on him. <\/p>\n
Looking to get better at that, while he was in Triple-A last summer, he met with a mental skills coach weekly. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere were moments where my mind got away from the present moment,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cIf I felt like I was getting frustrated with fouling off a pitch, we talked about a plan I could do in the box to allow myself to flush that and get ready to go. Or what to do after a bad call.\u201d<\/p>\n
They went through Dunn\u2019s week and discussed areas he felt like he could handle better.<\/p>\n
How was Dunn feeling after he fouled off a pitch that he should have crushed, or after a strike call didn\u2019t go his way?<\/p>\n
Dunn developed a routine. When he\u2019s at the plate, he\u2019ll take a pause by swiping the dirt twice to release what had just happened. <\/p>\n
In the outfield, he\u2019ll \u201creiterate to myself the type of player that I want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the 11th inning on Saturday, Dunn told one more thing to himself when Ivan Herrera was at the plate with two outs and a runner on third base. <\/p>\n
\u201cSomething shallow and soft, I can go all out and go for it,\u201d Dunn said to himself. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s the ball that Herrera hit, and Dunn made the charging play to save a run.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s anticipation and being ready for the moment,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cBeing able to not worry about what happened (before). All of that stuff is done with. I\u2019m focusing on where my feet are and anticipating what may be coming my way.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the bottom of the 11th, with the game winning run on third base, Dunn stepped up to the plate. He saw the pitch that was his kryptonite in 2025. <\/p>\n
Dunn struggled so much against the high fastball last year that he changed his stance. <\/p>\n
Dunn changed his stance to be taller, and he held his hands higher and as far back as he could. He simplified his swing and embraced the approach of putting the ball in play and using his speed instead of trying to sell out for power (Dunn has sneaky pop \u2014 he\u2019s Thor, see the biceps). <\/p>\n
The stance adjustment allows him to be more athletic, and to better cover the types of high fastballs that gave him trouble last year. His walk-off infield single wasn\u2019t exactly a thing of beauty, but it got the job done. <\/p>\n
Dunn has had to compete for every opportunity that he has received, going back to the minor leagues. He was a 15th-round pick in the 2021 MLB Draft, and the Reds drafted two college outfielders (Justice Thompson, Jack Rogers) ahead of him. Dunn opened the 2023 minor league season as a role player in High-A before tearing up that league and making a name for himself as a prospect. <\/p>\n
He performed well enough to make it to the big leagues in the summer of 2024, but Dunn was only in the lineup seven times during that season. Dunn made 18 big league starts in 2025, never playing well enough to earn a bigger role. In 2026, the Reds gave opportunities to Noelvi Marte and Rece Hinds before Dunn was called up.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou deal with the highs and the lows and you try to stay in the middle,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
He kept getting better. A terrific second half of the 2025 season in Triple-A carried over at that level in 2026. Now, he\u2019s helping the Reds win games. He changed the series in Philadelphia on the bases, and he played very in both games of the Reds\u2019 doubleheader on Saturday. <\/p>\n
The Reds need a center fielder. Earlier in May, Friedl and Benson were cycling through that spot and not producing much. The cycle was a reflection of the fact that the Reds don\u2019t have a starting center fielder right now. Friedl is hitting .176 this season, Benson is hitting .179 and neither is a standout defender at the center field position. <\/p>\n
Maybe Friedl or Benson figure it out at the plate. Maybe Noelvi Marte proves in Triple-A that he can handle a demanding center field position. Francona has spoken about the importance of having Myers on the bench when the Reds face a RHP so they can use Myers as the go-to bench bat vs. a left-handed reliever. <\/p>\n
Maybe Dunn gets a shot and runs with it. <\/p>\n
So far, that\u2019s what Dunn is doing. <\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WXIX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Standing in the clubhouse after the game, Elly De La Cruz flexes his arms and puffs out his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,535,2471,4,536],"class_list":["post-707238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-cincinnati","tag-logo","tag-mlb","tag-reds"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116627995584869457","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}