Brayan Bello Should Work Exclusively With An Opener for the Rest of the Season

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it 100 times here on Talk Sox, I’m a Brayan Bello guy. I followed his journey through the system and into the Show with a ton of interest. I celebrated when he was named the Opening Day starter in 2024 and then felt myself get increasingly let down by every emotional outburst and meltdown that started off that season. After the July 4 series in Miami though, Bello began to change. The outbursts stopped and Bello went deeper into games, Then, in 2025, he was on fire to begin the season. He looked like a legitimate number two option to slot in behind ace Garrett Crochet for much of the season. Then as we drew towards the playoffs, he started to fall off a cliff. When his name was called to start game two of the 2025 Wild Card series, he was on the shortest leash imaginable. This season, he reported back to spring training from the World Baseball Classic where he wasn’t getting as much work as both he and the team hoped he would, and the belief was he would slot in nicely as the hybrid number three/four starter for the team this season. 

Things haven’t gone according to plan.

As a true starter this season Bello currently holds a 9.68 ERA over 30 2/3s innings pitched with an opposing slash line of .370/.437/.440. He’s both struck out and walked 18 batters while allowing 10 home runs and 33 earned runs. When you look at his ERA each time the lineup flips over, it makes things look even more dire. The first time through, Bello has 7.11 ERA. The second time through it goes up to a 9.00 ERA. The third time it's a staggering 18.00 ERA. In short, he’s been awful. Abysmal even. I’ve already taken a dive into the mechanical and pitch mix changes that seem to have been plaguing Bello throughout the season, but at this point the answer is pretty clear: Bello no longer needs to be in the starting rotation for the Boston Red Sox. 

Bello has worked with an “opener”, or as a long reliever coming in after a bullpen arm started the game, three times this season, and the results have been more or less spectacular. In his first two outings, he tossed 13 ⅓ innings in this long relief role and held a 1.35 ERA with 12 strikeouts and one walk. He’s only allowed two earned runs to boot. Then, he produced another nice outing this weekend, holding the Twins to two (unearned) runs over five frames of work.

Each game he’s entered as after the opener haven’t been clean for Jovani Moran, but Bello never seemed bothered. He toed the rubber with poise and pitched deep into those games. He seems to have more control over his pitches and has a confidence that doesn’t show up when he starts games. What is maybe most impressive is that his strikeout rate goes from 11.3% as a starter to 24..5% out of the bullpen and his walk rate drops from 11.3% to 4.1% in the same situation. As a reliever, Bello’s ERA each turn through the rotation is incredible. In his first two long-relief outings, through both the first and second turns, he’d posted a 1.93 ERA. Through the third turn, he’s at a flat zero. 

While the opener route isn’t the most conventional, this wouldn’t be the first time that the Red Sox opted to go this route to try and salvage a starter’s poor start to the season. Just a few years ago, the team did this exact same thing with RHP Nick Pivetta. Pivetta started the season in a less-than-ideal fashion and was moved, against his will at the time, to the bullpen. While he complained at the beginning of the experiment, it ended up salvaging that season in Boston and likely helped propel him into the contract he signed in the 2025 offseason with the Padres. Bello, like Pivetta, is searching for consistency as a starter and has proven that he’s effective when he’s used out of the bullpen for multiple innings.

The role of a second-inning starter doesn’t make a ton of sense on paper, but it seems to be working for Brayan Bello. After two successful long-relief appearances he was given a true start against the best offense in baseball, the Braves. Things went about as poorly as you would expect. While interim manager Chad Tracy has seemingly pushed most of the right buttons for the Red Sox, that previous start showed he didn’t quite have his finger on the pulse of what was best for Bello. While Tracy won’t fully commit to going with an opener for Bello from here on out, choosing to instead say that it’s going to be matchup dependent, it’s pretty clear to everyone watching that Bello needs the stability of seeing the opposing lineup take hacks against someone else first.