Brayan Bello was supposed to be a part of the equation that had already been solved. As the Red Sox cling to their playoff lives, the questions on the pitching side were supposed to be about Chris Sale (who did his part to try to answer them with an impressive return Friday night), Garrett Whitlock (who will return as a reliever on Sunday) and Tanner Houck (who is expected to make one more rehab start before returning to the starting rotation).
The Red Sox need those guys to come back strong if they’re going to have any chance of making a real push, but they also needed the likes of Bello and James Paxton to keep pitching the way they were pitching before the All-Star break.
Unfortunately, that isn’t happening with Bello right now, with Saturday’s 6-2 loss to the Detroit Tigers the latest stumble for the promising young hurler.
Bello gave up nine hits and four runs while failing to get out of the fifth. He now has a 5.67 ERA in six starts since the All-Star break, allowing four or more runs in three of them.
That’s a far cry from the kinds of numbers Bello was posting for two months leading up to the All-Star break, when he consistently showed the ace potential everyone believes he has. After a couple tough outings to open the year, Bello posted a 2.35 ERA over his final 12 starts before the break.
Opponents hit .219 with a .619 OPS against Bello during that stretch. In this most recent six-start stretch, opponents are hitting .301 with an OPS over .900.
One notable change, as outlined by @redsoxstats below, is that Bello isn’t using and doesn’t seem to trust his breaking ball right now. When you see Kerry Carpenter take a hanging slider over the Green Monster in the second inning Saturday, you understand why. Eric Haase’s home run in the fifth came on a hanging cutter that technically counts as a fastball but that played like a breaking pitch at 88 mph.
Bello has had 509 2-strike pitches this season and has got a strikeout on a breaking ball 6 times. His breaking ball usage has gone from 27% April to 6% August. The stuff he has now is a good starting pitcher, to be an ace he's going to need to figure out and trust a breaker. pic.twitter.com/mszXmewYon
— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) August 12, 2023
Bello is 24 years old. He’s not a finished product, and some hiccups and tough stretches like this are still to be expected.
Unfortunately for the Red Sox, they truly are in desperation mode when it comes to their playoff chances, and they need just about everything to break right at this point. Bello breaking bad for much longer isn’t something they can afford.
Sure, some run support Saturday would have been nice. The Red Sox offense made Matt Manning and his 4.60 ERA look like a bona fide ace. But Bello was facing a Detroit offense that ranks as the second-worst in Major League Baseball this season, with a chance to make up a game on the Blue Jays following their loss earlier Saturday, and simply didn’t get the job done.
Maybe it’s not fair that the Red Sox are already so reliant on Bello, especially when he already put the rotation on his back for the better part of two months. But that’s the reality of the situation, and Boston needs Bello to get back on track if September baseball is going to be meaningful this year.
