The Red Sox are stuck with Brayan Bello no matter how ugly things get

Just when you thought Brayan Bello’s start to the 2026 season had hit rock bottom, he found a way to dig a little bit lower. It’s not just that he was rocked again on Wednesday night, giving up four runs on six hits and two walks in just 3.2 innings of work in a loss to the Toronto Blue Jays that raised his ERA for the year to an unsightly 9.12. It’s the fact that, as interim manager Chad Tracy went to finally take the ball from him so things couldn’t get worse, he had the temerity to act as though it were crazy to take him out of the game.

Maybe we’re simply misreading the body language here; maybe Bello was just frustrated at another awful outing, and was shaking his head at himself rather than his new manager. But in either case, it’s not the best look from a guy who’s been one of the single biggest contributors to the Red Sox’ sluggish start to the 2026 season — and just one more reason why all of New England can’t wait to be done with a guy who once looked like the future of their rotation.

Except, well, we have some bad news on that front. Bello has been one of the worst starters in baseball this year, and no postseason hopeful should be handing him the ball every fifth day. But Boston’s rotation is so banged up right now that the team unfortunately doesn’t have a choice.

Garrett Crochet injury puts Red Sox rotation in a bind

It was bad enough when the Sox lost Sonny Gray to a hamstring injury earlier this month. Gray appears to have dodged anything too serious — he threw a bullpen session earlier this week and could well return from the IL when first eligible on May 6. But even if Gray is back sooner rather than later, Boston still has a pitching problem due to the increasing concern around Garrett Crochet’s balky left shoulder.

Crochet was placed on the IL not long after arguably his best start of the season against the Orioles, complaining of inflammation in his left shoulder. We don’t yet have a clear sense of exactly what’s wrong or how long the Cy Young contender might be out, but considering his past injury history — including a shoulder issue with the White Sox that sidelined him for more than three months back in 2023 — it’s more than fair to be cautious here. And that means that, even once Gray comes back, the Red Sox will need Bello just to field a functional five-man rotation.

Boston will likely call up Jake Bennett from Triple-A to make his MLB debut on Friday against the Astros. But that’s about it for their high-Minors depth, with Tolle and Early already inserted into the rotation sooner than anticipated this season. Even adding Gray back into the equation, Bello still needs to play a role here — unless Bennett, a 25-year-old without a ton of prospect buzz entering the season, drastically out-pitches his pedigree. Beyond Suarez, Tolle and Early (the latter two of whom, it should be noted, are still pretty green), there just aren’t many other options for Craig Breslow to fall back on.

Is there any hope for a Brayan Bello turnaround?

Boston is going to need Bello to pitch better, because there’s nowhere to hide him at the moment. If you want to be an optimist, you can make that case: While he’s underwhelmed in his big-league career to date, he’s never been anywhere near this bad before, and his strong ground-ball and whiff rates suggest that he should be a tweak or two away from getting some better results. (It feels almost impossible to have a K rate in the sixth percentile with a whiff rate in the 67th percentile.)

Unfortunately, though, the rest of his underlying profile is pretty ugly; Bello is struggling to throw strikes consistently, and when he does wind up in the zone, the contact he gives up is alarmingly hard. He’s allowing batters to pull the ball in the air far more frequently than we’ve ever seen before. Even his signature changeup is getting hit around much more than in years past.

It’s hard to blame Breslow entirely for this situation, given that he could hardly have foreseen injuries to so many names Boston was counting on this season. Then again, Crochet and Gray have hardly been the picture of health in their careers, and we knew the deal with guys like Sandoval, Crawford and Tanner Houck. It’s fair to point out that, if you were going to pivot to building around run prevention as the Red Sox famously did this winter, you need your pitching staff to be more iron-clad than the one Breslow built. But now the worst-case scenario has come to pass, and there’s no way out but through.

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