Brayan Bello’s quest to earn his ticket back to the Major Leagues with the Red Sox started two days later than planned, on Saturday in Rochester, N.Y.
Befitting a season in which nothing has been easy for the struggling right-hander, he was supposed to make his debut for Triple-A Worcester on Thursday, and went through his full warm-up routine, only to have the rains come, forcing the game to get postponed.
Two days later, Bello finally got to pitch, and the outing came with some positives.
Over four innings, Bello scattered five hits and two runs, walking none and striking out five. He threw 76 pitches, 46 of them for strikes.
Most noteworthy was that Bello pitched a 1-2-3 first inning. Struggles in that opening frame played a large role in Bello’s demotion to the Minors on June 4. In his eight starts for Boston this season, Bello had a 16.88 ERA in the first inning.
Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy watched the video of Bello’s start.
“The sinker was there whenever he wanted it, that was good to see, 95-96. Sinker looked great,” Tracy said prior to Sunday’s game against the Rangers. “Still working on sweeper and changeup, and getting that part of his arsenal involved in the zone. He looked good. He got through the first inning. He didn't walk anybody. He had five strikeouts, nothing overly hard on contact quality.”
The blemishes took place in the second and third, when Bello’s pitch count rose while Rochester scored one run in each inning.
In the second, he gave up a single, a stolen base and an RBI single.
The Red Wings jumped him with a double to open the third. Bello then uncorked a wild pitch before giving up a seeing-eye RBI single through a drawn-in infield.
Before Bello’s next start, he will work with Worcester’s pitching group to continue to refine his mix.
“Bello is a worker,” said Tracy. “He’s open-minded to that stuff and we have two really good pitching coaches down there [Chad Otero and Noah Junis] who are very aware of what was happening here, and now they've seen it, and they'll just keep pushing it.”
Bello worked around a single to finish his outing with a scoreless fifth inning.
“Just having that sweeper and changeup, landing those and getting those in the zone whenever he wants, he's just going to keep working on that,” said Tracy. “But there were definitely some positives.”