If you go to the FanGraphs’ batting stats leaderboard, you’ll have to scroll for a while before you find a Red Sox player listed. If you keep scrolling, and then scroll a little bit more, and continue scrolling until your scrolling finger hurts, you’ll see that Boston has three of the bottom six qualifiers in wRC+, a catchall offensive output statistic. That’s right, Caleb Durbin, Trevor Story, and Jarren Duran rank 174th, 175th, and 176th of 179 qualifiers.
Fortunately, the Red Sox, they (stop me
if you’ve heard this one before) pivoted their focus to “run prevention” in the offseason after free agency didn’t go as expected. They signed Ranger Suarez and traded for Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo to bolster their rotation, while adding Willson Contreras and the aforementioned Durbin to improve the infield defense. Run prevention is a great strategy if you can score runs. The Red Sox can’t do that. They also can’t prevent runs, which renders the previous 150 words moot, but stay with me.
Part of the issue for the Red Sox pitching staff is injuries. Gray, Oviedo, Garrett Crochet, Kutter Crawford, and Patrick Sandoval have all been sidelined with injuries just over a month into the season. Ranger Suarez also left Sunday’s game early with hamstring tightness. There’s no team in the league, except for maybe the Dodgers, that will be very successful with six injuries to their rotation. That’s the reality of the situation, and there really isn’t anyone to blame for that.
Another issue for the Red Sox pitching staff is the pitchers who are healthy. Or, one of them at least — Brayan Bello. Bello has yet to miss a turn through the rotation, but isn’t qualified for league leaderboards because he hasn’t thrown enough innings. Of 136 starting pitchers with at least 20 innings pitched, he ranks 136th with a 9.12 ERA. That’s really, really bad. We’re just one year removed from Bello posting a 3.35 ERA over 166 innings. While there were signs that he wouldn’t repeat that number (mainly a 9.3% K%-BB% rate) becoming the worst pitcher in baseball was not something anyone saw coming.
You probably have some notion that Bello is a ground ball pitcher who isn’t keeping the ball on the ground because that’s what every analyst will repeat. Looking at the numbers, though, his groundball rate is in line with last season, when he had the 10th-best rate in baseball among qualifiers. Looking at everyone’s favorite stat to point to with no context, batting average in balls in play, Bello has the 10th-highest rate in baseball, about 80 points above his 2025 number. While I’d expect that to come down some, it doesn’t account for a six-run increase to his ERA.
Another obvious area is his control. His walk rate is up to 11%, three percent higher than his 2025 mark. He’s been in the zone as frequently, but hitters have chased less, and his put-away rate has fallen from an already low 16.6% to 13.1%.
The biggest issue, however, has been the quality of contact allowed. He’s getting barrelled left and right, up and down. Last season, when Bello allowed baserunners, he was often able to wiggle his way out of jams. This season, opponents have hit the ball hard and drove in runs. While he’s likely to see more ground balls go for outs, the hard contact he’s allowing will continue to be a problem if he can’t figure it out.
Looking at left-handed hitters in particular, his OPS allowed is up to 1.313 from .686. He’s walking more lefties and striking out fewer. His ground ball rate against them is down from 47% to 36%. While I can’t explain the innings where he completely loses control, like the third inning on April 29th against the Blue Jays, I have an idea why hitters are able to hit the ball hard in the air against him. His stuff is largely unchanged, but how he’s using it is different.
Here’s a look at his sinker heat map against lefties from last season.
And here are his cutters.
The sinkers and cutters, for the most part, are in the same location on the arm side. As the season rolled on, Bello started to go inside with his cutter more often, but it was largely used backdoor to lefties for called strikes. From the time he introduced the cutter in May through August, the called strike rate was an excellent 26.3%. The sinker was excellent as well, returning 61.7% groundballs. Cutters and sinkers play well off of each other. By starting a cutter off the plate and having it clip the outside edge, it allows him to throw sinkers away for called strikes, as well as getting chases off the plate. Here’s an example of how that looks from last season.
The cutter starts off the plate but comes back to clip the edge for a called strike, and then later in the at-bat Freeman can’t hold up on the sinker that starts in the same spot, but moves the other direction. It works on the other side of the plate as well. The sinker starts at the front hip and comes back for a called strike, while the cutter can get in on the hands and induce weak contact. That wasn’t something Bello showed a lot of last season, but in theory it can work.
Now take a look at his sinker heatmap from this season.
And here’s the cutters.
If it seems like hitters know what’s coming when Bello is on the mound, it might be because they do. Lefties swing rate against pitches in the zone is up, while their swing rate against pitches out of the zone is down. If you look at the heatmaps, you’ll notice that the cutters are still almost exclusively thrown back door, while the sinkers are now at the front hip. That, to me, is a problem. If a hitter sees a pitch that starts away, it’s likely a cutter. If it starts inside, it’s a sinker. The pitches play well off of each other, but they need to be thrown to the same locations. When hitters can identify a pitch based on where it starts, they can hammer it, like so.
Can Brayan Bello locate consistently well enough to execute a plan where he pitches to both sides of the plate? If I’m being honest, probably not. He’s been in the league for several years now and is yet to showcase that level of command. Still, he has to try to use the whole plate with each of his pitches, rather than zeroing in on one spot for each of them. If he can do that, hitters will have to be less aggressive against pitches in the zone, and Bello might be able to work deeper into games. While he’s probably not going to repeat his 3.35 ERA from 2025, he should be able to salvage his season. When he starts on Tuesday against the Tigers, pay attention to where his catcher sets up. If he continues only throwing sinkers to the front hip while backdooring cutters, it’s going to be a long night. If he can work East-West with both pitches, he might be more successful.
*I didn’t mention right-handed hitters at all. He should just continue throwing sinkers at their hands. There’s more to it than that (he can’t spin it), but I’d expect his performance against righties to improve regardless. He’s had some really terrible batted ball luck this season.
