Breslow, Red Sox want optioned Bello to 'fall in love with baseball' again

NEW YORK -- With Brayan Bello’s enigma of a season now continuing with Triple-A Worcester, where he was officially optioned on Friday, the Red Sox hope he can regain his joy for the game, and that it will help him rebound on the mound.

“When I first got here, he was a guy that had this big personality, and always had a smile on his face, interacting with teammates,” said Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow. “You could tell just how he loved to compete and loved to pitch, and I think we lost that a little bit where he was putting a ton of pressure on himself to go out and perform.

“One of the things that we asked him to do was to kind of fall in love with baseball all over again. To go down and compete. He’s gonna work hard -- we know that. But [we told him] to remember why you love playing this game.”

For Bello, there hasn’t been much to love about this season, at least when he’s been used as a traditional starter. In those eight starts, he is 1-6 with a 10.35 ERA, not to mention a 16.88 ERA in the first inning.

In four outings as a bulk reliever, Bello has been tremendous, posting a 0.71 ERA over four outings covering 25 1/3 innings.

But the domino effect of Bello bouncing between the rotation and the bullpen wasn’t working for the Red Sox as a whole, who are 2-10 in games Bello has appeared in this season.

“It was a really tough conversation, really tough decision,” said Breslow. “But we made that decision with the best interest of Brayan in mind, with the interest of the Red Sox. Obviously, he had struggled to find the consistency that we saw for a long stretch last year and have a lot of belief in Brayan as a Major League starter, but felt like he was putting a ton of pressure on himself. And this was no longer the best place for him to reset and work through this process.”

It is too soon to know how long it will take Bello to get his groove back and punch his ticket back to Boston. By Tuesday, the Red Sox will likely promote a starter from Worcester to take Bello’s rotation spot at Tropicana Field against the Rays. The front-runner is lefty Jake Bennett, who made two starts for Boston earlier in the season and has been strong for Worcester (1.60 ERA across nine starts).

Following Bello’s rough start against the Orioles on Thursday, the pitcher spoke confidently that he could fix his problems in the Majors rather than the Minors. Not long after, the Red Sox decided the right move was to send him down.

How did Bello take it?

“He took it very professionally, very respectfully,” Breslow said. “Obviously he's frustrated and disappointed in his performance. He wants to do everything he possibly can to contribute to this team at the Major League level with confidence that he can, and that he will.”

What are the specific points Bello needs to improve on? For starters, simplify his pitch mix to accentuate his strengths.

“Brayan is at his best when he really leans into the sinker-changeup combination. He attacks the strike zone. He manages contact, he gets a ton of ground balls,” said Breslow. “He's given up a lot of damage, particularly damage against lefties when he fell behind in counts. And I know Brayan and [pitching coach Andrew Bailey] have done a lot of work of trying to kind of recapture that form, both in terms of the pitch usage and locations, but also the delivery, where the slot is a little bit lower now, he's a little more athletic.”

Just six days before his demotion, Bello had perhaps his best performance of the season, throwing seven scoreless innings against the Guardians in a 4-3 loss in Cleveland on May 29.

“His stuff is starting to tick up over the last few outings,” Breslow said. “So I think it's really [about leaning] into that and continuing to do the work, and then to go out and just relentlessly attack the strike zone and make sure that he's forcing contact.”

Another issue is that Bello’s disappointment in the result of a particular at-bat has bled into subsequent at-bats.

“It's no secret that once things started to go in the wrong direction, they unraveled a little bit, and I think part of what this reset will do is give him a chance to work through that,” said Breslow. “And he’ll kind of remember, and he'll figure out again that his game is built on managing contact, so some balls are going to find holes, and let's get a double play with the next ground ball.”