Brayan Bello, Red Sox manager Alex Cora, pitching coach Andrew Bailey, and catcher Carlos Narvaez lend insight into Cora’s decision to pull Bello from his Game 2 start against the Yankees after only 2.1 innings.
In two of his three regular season starts against the Yankees, Brayan Bello gave the Red Sox seven shutout innings.
In Game 2 of the Wild Card series on Wednesday night, seven was a decidedly less magical number; it was how many pitchers Alex Cora used in the 4-3 loss.
Bello was one out into the third inning when he saw Cora striding determinedly to the mound. The Red Sox right-hander had faced 11 men and thrown 28 pitches, 17 for strikes. The Yankees tagged him for two earned runs, in the form of a two-run homer by Cohasset, Ma. native Ben Rice. Bello walked one and struck out none.
His manager said “nothing,” a sullen Bello relayed via team translator. “I just gave him the ball.”
Bello appeared blindsided. Postgame, he and Cora separately confirmed there had been no discussions about a potential early hook. Asked if he was surprised, Bello said, “Yeah, a little bit.”
“I don’t think that was the game plan,” pitching coach Andrew Bailey told the Herald. “It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, we want Brayan to be short today.’ I think Alex has been here a number of times and he has the temperature on all our players, and knows when to lean on other guys. Brayan’s been a horse for us all year long. This game doesn’t define him. The workload over a long period of time is very, very good. We expect him to bounce back next time and give us a long one.”
“It’s a tough lineup, a bunch of lefties,” Cora explained.
