The kid is going to be all right.
Among the biggest priorities for the Red Sox as they limp into the offseason is seeing the best from two of their brightest prospects: Brayan Bello and Triston Casas.
Casas was on the bench Tuesday night in Cincinnati, but Bello continued to build on an impressive run as he shut down the Reds with five strikeouts over five innings in a 5-3 win at Great American Ball Park.
Think the Red Sox have a good one in Bello? It’s too easy to get optimistic about the 23-year-old, who dusted off a terrible start to his career and is now on a run in which he has a 2.61 ERA and struck out 34 batters in his last 31 innings.
What the Sox are learning about Bello is that he makes adjustments quickly and he isn’t easily rattled.
Some bad luck contributed to a rough start to his career, but a demotion to Triple-A with a 10.13 ERA after two starts did nothing to shake his confidence.
He was tested again on Tuesday, when he loaded the bases with no outs in the second inning and then somehow found a way out of it. He struck out Nick Senzel on a vicious slider that darted across the plate and landed about six inches outside. Then he got Jose Barrero whiffing over his signature changeup beneath the zone. With two outs, Austin Romine dribbled a grounder to third base and Rafael Devers threw him out to end the jam.
As well as Bello has pitched, he’s been snake bitten by some unlucky bounces and poor defense behind him. And yet he only seems to get better in difficult moments. Despite the rough start Tuesday, he generated a remarkable 15 swings and misses in just five innings as his changeup is getting a whiff rate near 50%, an unthinkable number for anybody, much less a rookie.
Bello finished with 55 strikes on 84 pitches as manager Alex Cora took him out after completing five innings while in position to get his second big league win. He allowed just one run on a long ball from T.J. Friedl, who hammered a hanging fastball for a solo shot in the third inning.
Tied 1-1 in the fourth, the Sox took a lead on a solo shot by Rob Refsnyder, who blasted a Nick Lodolo fastball into the second deck in left field for a no-doubter. It was Refsnyder’s fifth homer of the year as he continues crushing left-handed pitching.
He’s now hitting .367 with an OPS near 1.000 in 69 plate appearances against left-handed pitching this year.
The 31-year-old was a nifty minor league signing by the Red Sox and has looked like a fantastic fourth outfielder, though the organization will have a difficult decision to make with him this offseason. He’ll be eligible for arbitration and the Sox will have to decide to pay him a few million bucks as an extra outfielder or non-tender him and look for cheaper options, a familiar route for the Sox in recent years.
J.D. Martinez put the Sox up 3-1 the next inning on another solo shot off Lodolo. Martinez got a dead-red fastball and hammered it for his 12th home run of the year.
He finished the night 2-for-5 with a triple, homer and two RBIs, but is hitting just .273 and has done himself no favors heading into free agency. Martinez, who turned 35 in August, is having his worst offensive season since the pandemic-shortened year, though he had two of the hardest-hit balls of the game on Tuesday.
Rafael Devers added a two-run shot in the ninth for his 27th long ball of the season.
Ryan Brasier, Zack Kelly and Matt Barnes pitched a scoreless inning each to get the ball to Matt Strahm in the ninth. Strahm struggled with his command and walked three batters to make things dicey.
John Schreiber had to replace him and clean up the mess after two runs scored, but the Sox secured the win and moved to 72-75 on the year.
They’ve got two more in Cincinnati before they head to New York for three against the Yankees.
