Red Sox face rotation decisions with Brayan Bello, rookie lefties in coming days

BOSTON — The Red Sox will have Connelly Early (Saturday) and Ranger Suárez (Sunday) start against the Astros over the weekend before going back on the road. After that, things remain in flux.

Boston has still not set its rotation for next week, starting with a quick three-game road trip to Detroit, as it juggles Sonny Gray’s potential return from the injured list, Brayan Bello’s struggles and the right amount of rest for rookies like Early, Payton Tolle and, potentially, Jake Bennett. Those conversations are underway one day after Gray — on the IL since April 21 with a minor hamstring strain — felt good in a three-inning live batting practice session at Fenway Park.

“No clarity yet,” said interim manager Chad Tracy. “I can tell you Sonny felt good coming in today, so we started to discuss and figure out what we’re gonna do with the rotation there.”

Tolle is next in line after Suárez but the Red Sox plan to be careful with his between-starts routine after he tired during his outing Tuesday and logged just 4 ⅔ innings against the Blue Jays on regular (four days). The Red Sox were off Thursday, so Tolle would pitch Monday on an extra day of rest. That is still an option.

“There’s avenues on that we’ll look at,” Tracy said. “That would be a five-day. Do we want to move that around? We haven’t gotten there yet on what we want to do.”

On Friday, Tracy said he was “planning” on having Bello make his next start and the righty would be in line for Tuesday. Bello, though, has a 9.12 ERA through his first six starts of the season and has allowed 12 earned runs and 19 hits in seven innings in his last two outings. .