Former Bellingham High School baseball star Austin Shenton makes Rays’ Opening Day roster

Daniel Schrager
·2 min read

Former Bellingham High School baseball star Austin Shenton made the Tampa Bay Rays’ MLB roster to start the season, the team announced on March 27.

The 26-year-old, who’s considered the eighth-best prospect in the Rays’ farm system, according to MLB.com, hit .304 with 29 home runs across 134 games split between double-A and triple-A last season. He was expected to start this season in the minors as well after being sent to the Rays’ triple-A affiliate, the Durham Bulls, two weeks ago. But a series of injuries opened up room on the major league roster, and the Rays decided to give him a shot.

A four-sport star in high school, Shenton played baseball at Bellingham High between 2013 and 2016. As a freshman, he hit over .400 before an injury took away his sophomore year. According to David Farrell, Bellingham’s baseball coach at the time, who’s since moved to Mount Baker Senior High School, Shenton’s talent was impossible to ignore even early in his time at Bellingham.

“He steps in as a freshman, and you’re giving instructions to some kid and you hear the crack of a bat in the batting cage and you’re like ‘Wow, that just sounds different.’ So you turn around and you see Austin in there just hitting line drives and doing his thing,” Farrell said.

In his last year at Bellingham High, Shenton had a batting average of .472. He was drafted in the 34th round out of high school, but opted to play college ball instead. Farrell said that in his time at Bellingham, Shenton’s character stood out to him as much as his talent.

“It was a treat, I’ll tell you that,” Farrell said. “He was just a kid that wanted to be challenged. It was hard to challenge him because he was so good, but he took whatever you taught him.”

Bellingham’s Austin Shenton, right, slides to second as Lynden Christian’s Truman Van Dalen misses a catch Monday, April 1, 2013, in Bellingham.
Bellingham’s Austin Shenton, right, slides to second as Lynden Christian’s Truman Van Dalen misses a catch Monday, April 1, 2013, in Bellingham.

Shenton spent a year at Bellevue College, where he nearly hit .400, before transferring to Florida International University. He starred for the Panthers, hitting .337 across two seasons, and was taken by the Seattle Mariners in the fifth round of the 2019 MLB Draft. The Mariners traded Shenton to the Rays in 2021, and he’s worked his way through the team’s farm system ever since.

Shenton becomes the fifth Bellingham High alum to make the majors, according to BaseballReference.com.