Brayan Bello Makes Fiery Return to Fenway

Brayan Bello returned to the mound for the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday against the Mariners. Things started pretty shaky. Bello gave up a solo home run to Jorge Polanco with one out in the inning. Then he walked Cal Raleigh and hit Randy Arozarena and Luke Raley to load the bases. Things started to look a bit bleak. Up steps Rowdy Tellez, ready to cash in. Tellez hits a screamer up the first base line that Triston Casas handled like a Gold Glove caliber first baseman, spun, whipped the ball to Trevor Story covering second, who then also spun, and fired back to Bello covering first. Bello stretched and… may or may not have kept his toe on the bag to turn the double play. However, Tellez was out, and the Mariners waited too long to challenge the call. Bello, somehow, worked his way out of a terrifying first inning with only one run surrendered, and the game changed. 

Bello wasn’t stellar in his major league debut on Tuesday, but that’s okay. He tossed five innings, allowing one earned run, walking three, and striking out three. He threw 97 pitches on the night, 51 of those for strikes. You’d like to see more strikes and more strikeouts, but Bello has never been a pitcher who hunts for strikeouts. In fact, after that first inning, Bello threw his sinker effectively and induced nine ground balls to just one in the air. There was a brief moment of concern in the bottom of the fourth inning when he began to limp, and Alex Cora was having him make fists with his pitching hand, but Bello finished the inning and came back out to throw one final inning on the night. 

What stood out to me tonight was that his slider looked deadly. I wrote last week how Bello had begun leaning on his slider in two-strike counts in his minor league outings, which continued tonight. Two of his three strikeouts came on the slider, the third on his changeup. Typically, his go-to strikeout pitch has been his sinker, but if this new and improved slider keeps working like it did tonight, expect Bello to start hunting for more strikeouts as he trusts his breaking ball more and more. On top of that, he seems to have taken his emotional outbursts that plagued parts of last season and turned them into fuel for himself. Just look at his reaction to the final strikeout of the night. You can’t teach that emotion, and that’s the kind of fire you want your starters bringing game in and game out.

While Brayan Bello wasn’t perfect, he showed just how high his ceiling is. The Red Sox showed a ton of faith in him when they extended him heading into the 2024 season and we should all hope that he continues to build on this start. If this is the version of Brayan Bello we can expect during the 2024 season, then we’re in for a fun ride as the starting rotation takes a significant step forward.