With the Celtics and Bruins done, the Red Sox take center stage… for better or worse

I feel like I’ve stuck my neck out for Brayan Bello over the last few years. Whether it’s here on OTM or on Pod On Lansdowne, in person or online, I’ve given him grace. Just a few weeks ago on this very site, I wrote in a Brushback article that I still believe there’s a good pitcher in there somewhere in spite of what was (and still is) a real rough start to 2026. Since that shout out, things have only gotten worse for Bello. In seven innings over his last two starts, he’s surrendered 19 hits (and three walks, so not as bad I guess?) and 12 runs—all of ‘em earned. His ERA has now ballooned beyond 9 and his WHIP is a ghastly ***2.26***. He’s gotten some more swing-and-miss in his game, sure, but that isn’t resulting in K’s. I’ll concede that hasn’t been his game in the past, but the qualities he’s shown in the past have also been mid. He’s technically keeping the ball on the ground a lot, I suppose, but is that because everyone right now knows they can tee off of him? I suppose not *every* ball can be barreled up (although Bello’s body of work seems to be trying to disprove that notion considering his barrel rate sits in the 7th percentile as I’m writing this), right? I’m baffled at how bad this has been for Bello. I can’t really tell you exactly what’s causing this, because so much of the stuff under the hood looks bad. My patience is wearing thin, if it’s not completely gone already. I’ll leave it to others to dive deep on his body language when he’s being taken off of the hill and whatnot, but the fact of the matter is that he’s only made it through five full innings in one of his six starts. Hell, he’s only made it into the fifth twice! It is, simply put, unacceptable stuff from number 66. If he doesn’t want to get all pissed off, I’d suggest he stop throwing absolute cookies that are practically tailor-made for clobbering en route to another outing where he fails to qualify for a winning decision. Interim manager Chad Tracy said they might utilize an opening pitcher for Bello’s next start. Maybe that does something; it worked for Nick Pivetta a few years ago if you recall. Or maybe it does nothing at all and it’s just window dressing. Either way, I don’t think a trip down to Worcester is out of the question for him in the near future, especially when you remember that he’s still got minor league options remaining. The issue is that the amount of MLB-caliber arms available for Boston at this point in time is thin (although it sounds like Sonny Gray could return soon), so the team might feel like they need to have Bello out there to eat more innings. (*Note: Of course, now it looks like Ranger Suarez is hurt. I’m writing this just as we’re all finding out that he got pulled after just four innings. Yikes.)* While that might be true, I think the clock’s ticking here folks. Something’s gotta change or something’s gotta give. Not to repeat myself, but Bello’s pitching has been unacceptable for a team claiming to contend for something this season. Figure it out, man.

I know the production at the plate fell off towards the end of his cup of coffee in 2025 and it was a slow start for him to begin 2026, but infielder Marcelo Mayer has impressed me with the lumber recently. His nine-game hit streak came to a close in Saturday’s loss, sure, but his OPS climbed over .100 over that stretch (.549 to .685; gotta start somewhere, right?) while he struck out just once in that same time frame. The strikeouts—or lack thereof—for Mayer have certainly been the most positive development in my book. His swing was always beautiful and we’ve seen flashes of the type of hard contact he can make when he’s on, but he struck out about 30% of the time across his 136 plate appearances last year. Entering play on Sunday, he’s almost slashed that K-rate in half; he had only struck out 16.3% of the time, good for the 79th percentile in the league prior to Sunday’s action. The reasoning behind that, simply put, is that he’s not chasing at junk. For a team that has so many noncompetitive ABs over the first month-and-change of the season, Mayer’s plate approach recently has been a breath of fresh air. Now, of course, the point about limiting strikeouts is all well and good, but it isn’t everything. Mayer’s offensive production is still subpar at the end of the day. The OPS still starts with a 6 since he’s not excelling at either component of that formula. It remains to be seen if he can continue to deliver against left-handed pitchers, though Tracy has said he wants to give him more looks against those guys (thankfully). But the building blocks to Marcelo’s continued offensive development are showing themselves now. It’s gonna be hard for a 23-year-old to make any sort of progress with the bat if the ingredients aren’t in place. If he’s staying competitive in the box and not bailing pitchers out by chasing at stuff out of the zone, that sets the table for everything else. His swing is beautiful, he controls the bat on a good plane, and his bat speed is very good. If he’s pairing good swing decisions with his physical tools, then I believe that positive regression is in the cards for Mayer. Maybe that Car Shield heckler motivated him to be better.

A hearty congratulations to lefty Jake Bennett on making his MLB debut Friday night and logging his first victory! He threw five innings en route to the W, as he struck out a trio of ’Stros while surrendering just one earned run. It was a perfectly cromulent debut for the 25-year-old. Three words on what you can perhaps expect from Mr. Bennett, courtesy of the wonderful Prospect Savant resource: extension, extension, extension. CBO Craig Breslow loves pitchers who are literally letting go of the ball closer to the plate than the average bear, and Bennett’s got that in spades as evidence by his 93rd percentile extension within the Arizona Fall League. He doesn’t throw insanely hard (easy for me to say that a fastball sitting at around 95 MPH isn’t that fast, I suppose) but the location and command he’s shown has been impressive; MLB Pipeline rated him a 60-grade command guy on the 20-80 scale. The 4SFB-change-sinker triumvirate looks to be his main offerings, as he threw those three offerings 74 out of 85 times on Friday. Pipeline writes: “He has a high floor as a No. 4 starter and Boston believes it can help him add some more strength and velocity, which could make him more than that.” I’ll take that, especially right now given the pitching injuries. Crochet and Gray, like I said earlier, won’t be on the mend terribly long (although I have no idea what the deal with Suarez is right now, TBD), but those IL stints along with the performance of the guy who I just wrote about could open the door for some more Bennett appearances. One thing to watch the next time Bennett’s out on the bump, perhaps, is the walks. He issued two free passes on Friday, but historically that’s not been an issue for him. He walked just 6% of batters in the AFL a few months back, and again: that control is damn good. Bennett could be a quite useful pitcher to have, and his emergence could be coming at the right time for Boston. I’m interested to see him continue to develop.