Red Sox pitching prospect Bradley Blalock’s season is over before it really even started. The young right-hander took to Instagram on Thursday to announce that he had undergone Tommy John surgery, which was performed by Dr. James Andrews at the Andrews Institute for Orthopedics & Sports Medicine in Gulf Breeze, Fla.
“Well my 2022 Season was cut short on March 2nd,” Blalock wrote. “Thank you to Dr. Andrews and his staff for performing my TJ. The Road to recovery starts now and I couldn’t be in better hands than the training staff down in Fort Myers. Time to get to work.”
Blalock, 21, entered the 2022 season ranked by Baseball America as the No. 36 prospect in Boston’s farm system. The Red Sox originally selected the Georgia native in the 32nd round of the 2019 amateur draft out of Grayson High School.
After his first full season in pro ball was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Blalock opened and spent the entirety of the 2021 campaign with Low-A Salem.
In 23 starts for the Salem Sox, Blalock posted a a 4.27 ERA and 4.18 FIP to go along with 85 strikeouts to 36 walks over 86 1/3 innings of work. The 6-foot-2, 200 pound hurler operates with a three-pitch mix that includes a mid-90s fastball, a slider, a curveball, and a changeup, per his SoxProspects.com scouting report.
Blalock was projected by SoxProspects.com to begin the 2022 season with High-A Greenville. He will instead be sidelined for the rest of the year and should be getting back into form within the next 12-15 months.
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