The Boston Red Sox have finally set a return date for Brayan Bello, but they’re not going to ease him back into the rotation.
In fact, Boston is throwing Bellow straight into the fire.
Red Sox manager Alex Cora announced Friday that Bello would make his season debut against the Los Angeles Angels on Monday, per Jen McCaffery. Returning to face Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani would be hard enough, but the 23-year-old is now on track to oppose Ohtani, who is set to take the bump for the Angels. Oh yeah, Monday is also Patriots’ Day, which means Bello’s return will be bookended by the Boston Marathon and the start to the Boston Bruins’ highly-anticipated Stanley Cup playoffs run.
The return of Bello is a highly-anticipated one, as he entered the 2022 season as the organization’s highest rated pitching prospect in over a decade.
Bello made his Major League Baseball debut on July 6, 2022 and remained a regular in the rotation for the majority of last season. Though he finished with a 2-8 record and 4.71 ERA across 57 1/3 innings pitched, Bello finished his rookie season with a 0.4 WAR and showed marked improvement during the month of September.
It was expected that the Dominican Republic native would begin the year in Boston, but was set back in his ramp up for the season when he missed time due to forearm tightness. Bello eventually started to make appearances, and has impressed during his rehab outings with Triple-A Worcester.
The next step? A (difficult) return to Boston to help the Red Sox rotation return to form.
