{"id":662468,"date":"2026-05-24T15:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T15:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/662468\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T15:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T15:12:08","slug":"blake-dunn-making-strong-case-for-larger-role-in-reds-outfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/662468\/","title":{"rendered":"Blake Dunn Making Strong Case for Larger Role in Reds Outfield"},"content":{"rendered":"

The second game of Saturday\u2019s doubleheader ended on a roller-coaster play, as Blake Dunn<\/a>\u2019s jam shot up the middle led to a play at the plate, and a well-executed slide by Spencer Steer<\/a> scored the winning run, giving Cincinnati<\/a> a 7-6 victory.<\/p>\n

The team flooded out of the dugout and crowded Dunn on the field, celebrating the fact that he helped the Reds<\/a> avoid an all-time bad day at the ballpark by salvaging one of the two games and forcing a rubber game Sunday.<\/p>\n

In his 13 games at the big-league level this season, Dunn is 13-for-37 (.351) at the plate with a .941 OPS. He has recorded hits in six straight games, and in four of those six games, he has posted multiple hits. The Holland, Michigan, native had two hits in Saturday\u2019s win. They weren\u2019t as loud as Elly De La Cruz<\/a> and Nate Lowe<\/a>\u2019s home runs, but they helped the Redlegs win a close game.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

In search of some offensive support, Dunn was a sort of \u201cthrow it at the wall and hope it sticks\u201d call-up from Triple-A. He has played nine of his 13 games in right field while also seeing some time in center field. Dunn has made three separate appearances on the major league roster over the last three years and has not had this level of success. He spent 19 games in the big leagues in 2024 and 30 in 2025. Manager Terry Francona was very complimentary of how Dunn played the game early in his time with the team this season.<\/p>\n

Dunn is trending toward becoming an everyday player as usual outfielders TJ Friedl<\/a> and Will Benson<\/a> struggle to find a footing offensively. Friedl is hitting just .176 with two home runs and eight RBIs in 148 at-bats, while Benson has a .179 batting average with two home runs and five RBIs. Per Savant, Friedl\u2019s barrels-per-plate-appearance percentage is just 1.8, the lowest among eligible Reds players by a full three percentage points.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Friedl has seemingly lost a step defensively in the outfield, so both Dunn and Dane Myers<\/a> appear to be pushing for a reconfiguration of the outfield under Terry Francona.<\/p>\n

The Reds will face the Cardinals in the rubber game of their three-game series Sunday, and it is starting to become expected that players such as Dunn, Nate Lowe, and JJ Bleday<\/a> \u2014 all players who were not expected to be key contributors before the season \u2014 will contribute offensively in some way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The second game of Saturday\u2019s doubleheader ended on a roller-coaster play, as Blake Dunn\u2019s jam shot up the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[289535,15056,61863,7952,94559,363,114813,173050,1712,38177,99,98362,1713,94558,38336],"class_list":["post-662468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-blake-dunn","tag-cincinnati","tag-dane-myers","tag-elly-de-la-cruz","tag-jj-bleday","tag-mlb","tag-nate-lowe","tag-pierce-johnson","tag-reds","tag-spencer-steer","tag-sports","tag-terry-francona","tag-the-reds","tag-tj-friedl","tag-will-benson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}