There have been a lot of events that weren’t on most people’s Boston Red Sox bingo cards this season, and Brayan Bello being demoted to Triple-A was one of them.
A year after putting up a 3.35 ERA in the regular season and flirting with the notion of earning the No. 2 starter role, Bello had several memorable implosions to begin the new year. He proved incapable of pitching in the first inning (ERA over 16), excelled when used as a bulk reliever, but kept blowing up when getting put back in the rotation (then giving snippy quotes after games).
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After Bello was officially demoted following his Thursday start against the Baltimore Orioles, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow gave an illuminating quote about how the 27-year-old had been behaving behind the scenes.
Bello needs to… what?
Breslow suggested Friday that Bello needed to get back in touch with his baseball roots, which is pretty easy to read into and figure that the righty hurler had been moody during his tough season.
“One of the things that we messaged to him was, when I first got here, he was a guy who had this big personality. He always had a smile on his face, interacting with his teammates, and you could tell (he) loved to compete and loved to pitch. And I think we’ve lost that a little bit, where he was putting a ton of pressure on himself to go out and perform,” Breslow said, via Sean McAdam of MassLive.
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“So one of the things we asked him to do was to fall in love with baseball all over again – to go down, to compete. But to kind of remember why he loved playing this game.”
Even if Breslow’s tone was completely sincere, there’s no mistaking that he wasn’t a fan of the way Bello was acting. And in Major League Baseball, players have license to act how they want on occasion, but only if they’re performing.
So as much as improving his command is an important objective for Bello during his stint in Triple-A, there’s lots of work to
be done between the ears as well. At least, that’s what his chief baseball officer will be thinking.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/red-sox/onsi as Did Red Sox CBO Just Take a Shot At Brayan Bello?.
