Baseball | 8/15/2011 8:45:00 AM
Midway through the 2007 minor league baseball season things were not going well for Blake Maxwell, a former standout pitcher for MU.
The big right-hander was pitching in the Red Sox farm system for Class A Lancaster in the California League, a circuit that can damage the psyche of pitchers in small parks where the baseball flies over the fence in the dry air during the summer.
"It was the worst place in the world to pitch. I was miserable," said Maxwell, who had experienced some success after he was drafted out of MU by Boston in 2005.
With a high ERA in Lancaster, the resident of Hope Mills approached Red Sox personnel about having him go back to the type of sidearm delivery that had been effective during his college career. His arm slot—which means at what point he was releasing the ball—had gotten lower and lower towards the ground after he turned pro in 2005.
The Red Sox let him go back to his sidearm delivery and Maxwell had a strong second half of the season in 2007. While he had an ERA of 6.04 with Lancaster in 2007, he lowered that to 3.32 in 2008 in the California League.
He then climbed up the Boston farm system, made it to Class AAA Pawtucket in 2010 and this past spring appeared in exhibition games with the Red Sox in spring training, including a scoreless inning in Houston against the Astros at Minute Maid Park in late March. “The big league club knows who I am,” he said.
After being used as a starting pitcher at times in his pro career, this year he was been used just out of the bullpen.
"It has been a really long road. I am blessed to be here," said Maxwell, standing outside his Class AA Portland clubhouse before a series in Bowie, Md., in early August.
But that road taken by Maxwell, who admits he considered giving up his Major League dream, has him knocking on the door of becoming a big league reliever with the Red Sox.
And that would be an amazing story for a former Division III pitcher at Methodist who was drafted in the 40th round by Boston. On top of that Maxwell, 27, began the 2011 season not even listed among the top 30 Red Sox prospects by industry leader Baseball America (based in Durham) and his name was nowhere to be found on the depth chart of 28 right-handed starters or relievers in the Boston minor league system.
Maxwell has pitched again this season for Pawtucket, the highest level in the Boston farm system. He was 1-2 with an impressive ERA of 2.50 in 13 games, with one save. Most of the season he has played for the Class AA Portland (Maine) Sea Dogs, and he has done even better there. Maxwell, in games through Aug. 14, was 3-3 with an ERA of 2.09 in 29 games, with 11 saves for Portland. In 43 innings he allowed just 33 hits and 14 walks with 45 strikeouts, and opponents were batting just .213 against him.
"He has been terrific for us," said Kevin Boles, the Sea Dogs manager. "He has that mentality; he wants the ball. He keeps getting better." Maxwell throws a fastball, slider and changeup and has to rely on deception to get batters out since he does not have a blazing fastball. “I don't think I have overpowering stuff,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell pointed that in early August he had 40 career saves in the minor leagues and that goes along with 42 wins to match his late 40th-round selection out of college by the Red Sox. His fastball is clocked in the low 90s and he also throws at least two off-speed pitches.
Maxwell is a big 6-5, 255-pounder who admits he loves all kinds of country music and that is how he spends most of his time on long bus rides with Portland in the Northeast part of the United States. The league stretches from Akron in Ohio, south to Richmond and north to Portland and New Hampshire.
Maxwell began playing youth baseball at an early age and one of his coaches was his father. The pitcher was hardly recruited out of high school and planned to attend North Carolina State as a student and study architecture.
But he was approached by veteran MU head coach Tom Austin while playing American Legion baseball following his senior year of high school. Maxwell headed to MU and saw action on the mound as a freshman. “I knew Blake from his time at our camp when he was younger,” Austin said. “He was a hard worker and a good kid. We thought he had a real upside. We knew he was a project as pitcher.”
Maxwell studied physical education and is about one year shy of his degree. But that degree may have to wait as he pursues an unlikely big league dream.
“It was a small college. I had more of a personal relationship with teachers and students,” Maxwell said of attending MU.
Former big league pitcher Bob Kipper, the pitching coach for Portland in 2011, has worked with Maxwell for several years in the Red Sox minor league system and was the pitching coach for Lancaster in 2007 when they decided to change his delivery.
"He has had an interesting road through our system. I can't say enough good things about him,” Kipper said. “He has learned from his failures. But more importantly he has learned from his successes, which he has had many. Bottom line is Blake Maxwell gets batters out and that has value. It has not been an easy road for him. He had endured much."
Editor's note: David Driver, a former baseball player at Division III Eastern Mennonite in Virginia, has covered minor and major league baseball for 20 years. He can be reached at www.davidsdriver.com.
