While the Boston Red Sox are playing some good baseball in recent weeks, they haven't gotten the best from starting pitcher Brayan Bello.
On Tuesday, Bello got shelled by the Toronto Blue Jays in a 9-4 loss at Fenway Park. The 25-year-old gave up seven runs on five hits and three walks in his 2 1/3 innings of work.
Despite the poor showing, Bello wanted to keep pitching.
“I obviously didn’t want to come out of the game,” Bello said through translator Daveson Pérez (via. MassLive). “I wanted to compete. I was kind of surprised when they took me out but a lot of runs that inning, a lot of pitches being thrown. But hopefully moving forward, I don’t have a terrible outing like the one I just had and this is the only short outing that I’ll have.”
He knows he hasn't been good, but he's not sure why that's been.
“My mindset is good,” Bello said. “My mechanics are good. I don’t really know what’s going on right now. But I do know I’m working with Bails (pitching coach Andrew Bailey) about attacking the zone and doing what I’m supposed to do. And there’s still a lot of season left for me. I know it hasn’t been great to this point. But I know what I am capable of and I know what I can do for the rest of the season.”
However, manager Alex Cora explained the biggest issue for the young righty after the game.
“We’ve gotta throw more strikes,” Cora said. “That’s the most important thing regardless of the results. We have to be more aggressive in the zone. ... So I think that summarizes his outing. We need to throw more strikes.”
On the season, Bello now has a 5.55 ERA and a 1.47 WHIP while striking out just 64 in 14 starts.
The traffic has been an issue for Bello all season long. Even in his last outing against the Blue Jays prior to this loss, he only allowed two runs through six innings, but he constantly had to work and get out of unnecessary jams.
If you can't consistently throw strikes and are allowing batters to take free bases, it's going to be really tough to succeed.
