There was good reason that the Boston Red Sox made a late, albeit ill-fated, push to acquire Minnesota Twins star pitcher Joe Ryan at the trade deadline. Garrett Crochet has been everything that fans and the team could've hoped for as an ace. However, for a team with more than legitimate postseason aspirations, there appeared to be a question about Boston's No. 2 starter in the October rotation behind Crochet.
Quietly, though, a member of the Red Sox staff has proven that the club didn't need Ryan after all to fill that void: Brayan Bello.
Coming off of a mixed bag of a 2024 season, wherein Bello posted a 4.49 ERA on the year, the expectations for the 2025 campaign were muted. The hope was that he could be a stabilizing force at the bottom of the rotation, encouraged by the fact that the Red Sox have him locked into an extension through at least 2029 at $9.167 million per season.
Not only has he lived up to that contract, but Bello is currently making it look like one of the biggest steals in baseball as he's performing at a level that's looking an awful lot like Crochet every fifth day. And the result is that Boston's ceiling in the playoffs has now been raised tremendously.
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Brayan Bello has quietly become the No. 2 starter the Red Sox needed
The overall numbers for Bello this season are phenomenal in themselves, as the 26-year-old is sporting a 3.07 ERA and 1.222 WHIP (both career-bests by far) through 23 starts. That, in itself, makes him look like a guy that Boston should feel confident giving the ball to come the postseason. But the righty has even turned it up a notch over the past two months, in what's no longer a small sample size.
Bello has appeared in 15 games since the beginning of June and has posted a 2.75 ERA with a 1.053 WHIP across 95 innings over that span. He's walked just 24, and though his strikeouts are only at 73, he's become the weak-contact pitcher that everyone dreamed of when he first joined the Red Sox. Better yet, he's been doing it with vastly improved command and confidence on the mound.
To put that into perspective, though, just look at the ace of the staff: Crochet. Over that same time span, the War Pig has made 14 starts and gone 91.1 innings with a 2.66 ERA with a 1.062 WHIP. Of course, the strikeouts are much higher (118) and the walks have been more limited (18), but that's also just a different type of pitcher. When you look at the overall results in terms of helping Boston win games, you could argue that Crochet and Bello have been more 1A and 1B on the mound than a No. 1 and 2 over the past couple of months.
Certainly, there will be people who are quick to note that some of the underlying data for Bello doesn't make this look sustainable, with a 4.24 expected ERA overall this season and a 3.82 FIP since June 1. At the same time, those metrics don't fully encapsulate what Bello is trying to do in terms of forcing weak contact, which he's been great at throughout the year and elite at of late.
There's no longer a question of who would start Game 2 of a playoff series now. Crochet gets the ball in Game 1, and now Bello would clearly be the next starter up. He's been nothing short of dominant this season and over the past two months, in particular. While it'd certainly be nice to have Ryan to create a 1-2-3 punch, Breslow and the Red Sox' lack of a real impact pitching addition at the trade deadline isn't the playoff death sentence many were making t out to be in the immediate aftermath.
And frankly, the AL West contingent of the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners are the only current American League playoff teams that can rival Boston's 1-2 punch right now of Crochet and Bello. That could become quite important when the postseason rolls around and the margins become thinner to decide a victor.
Red Sox still shouldn't let Brayan Bello stop them from Joe Ryan pursuit in the offseason
Having said all of that, perhaps the most advantageous thing about Bello for the Red Sox is his contract. Because Boston got the deal done early prior to last season, he's essentially making fifth-starter money on an annual basis. The fact that he's performing like a No. 2 makes that contract wildly valuable, not just because it's team-friendly but also because that team-friendliness affords the Red Sox the opportunity to still add someone like Ryan moving forward.
Given that Breslow and Boston pursued Ryan at the trade deadline, he's the most obvious candidate to assume that the Red Sox will resume conversations about in the offseason. However, that list could also include the likes of impending free agents such as Framber Valdez, Brandon Woodruff and so on. That is to say, the team has options — and Bello's current contract affords the front office the luxury of heavily exploring those options because, well, they can afford it.
That's not to say the Red Sox couldn't afford it anyway with the blessing of ownership — John Henry has the money; it's spending that money that's been the problem at times in recent years. However, the thought of adding another star to the rotation with Crochet and Bello performing at this level is almost too enticing to pass up.
Bello breaking out in the manner that he has not only gives the Red Sox exactly what the team needed for the 2025 postseason, it could better help the club prepare for postseasons to come as well.