After being pushed back in the rotation due to struggles this year, Boston Red Sox starter Brayan Bello had one of his best outings of the season in the middle game of the series against the Miami Marlins.
On Wednesday, Bello allowed just one earned run on seven hits while striking out seven over 6 2/3 innings. Despite having traffic on the bases, he was able to work his way out of jams, including in the first inning when he allowed his lone earned run and still had two men on with just one out.
The performance of the 25-year-old impressed pitching coach Andrew Bailey, who worked with Bello during the extra days of rest.
“Looking to add the four-seamer back was something we were looking to do at some point in time,” Bailey said (via. MassLive). “Brayan brought it up to us and spoke about how it can help him free up some of the other pitchers a little bit.
“Brayan is not a finished product. None of our guys are. We’ve got to meet them where they’re at and push them when needed. We worked on a few things with the sinker and the changeup. We thought it was the right time to bring the four-seam back. For him to go out and pitch the way he did in a one-run game and hold us there the whole way through was really impressive.”
Allowing Bello to use his four-seamer to set up some of his other pitches proved to be really beneficial. Even manager Alex Cora liked the way he worked.
“He responded in the first inning the way we wanted him to,” Cora said. “They came out swinging, got their hits, but he stayed attacking. His stuff was really good. He was throwing hard, the changeup was probably his best one of the season and he gave us a chance to win.
“He’s one of our best ones. We’ve got to get him going and today was a good one.”
Bello will need to do the same against a better lineup than the Marlins and with some consistency before everyone's fully bought back in, but it was a good start.
