Red Sox Back Brayan Bello After Uncharacteristic Outing Vs. A’s

The Boston Red Sox failed to bounce back, losing back-to-back games to the league-worst Oakland Athletics to end their road trip on Wednesday.

This time, the Red Sox were hampered by Brayan Bello’s struggling trip to the mound, surrendering three two-run home runs to the Athletics, who before hosting Boston, were losers of eight straight. Nevertheless, the Red Sox made the rubber match competitive, ultimately falling short in a 6-5 loss, but understood Bello was entitled to an atypical performance.

“He’s been fantastic for us,” Justin Turner told reporters, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “Pounding the zone, using all his pitches and unfortunately today, made a couple of mistakes and those guys didn’t miss it. But, he’ll be back out there in five or six days, whatever it is, and I like our chances to win anytime he’s on the mound.”

Bello was quickly on pace to emerge as Boston’s ace, most notably starting in the month of June. The 24-year-old entered the series finale in Oakland having gone 5-2 with a 2.51 ERA, holding opponents to a .213 batting average through Bello’s last 46 2/3 innings pitched, dating back to June 5.

Yet, one subpar start — going four innings, allowing six earned runs with three strikeouts against Oakland — isn’t going to be enough to concern Boston with Bello proven to be the most valuable member of the starting rotation this season.

“It’s just a bad outing, you know. It happens,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said, per NESN. “He’ll be ready for the next one.”

With the loss, the Red Sox obviously didn’t do right by their run in the American League Wild Card race, dropping 2.5 games out. Boston also suffered its first series loss after taking four straight, splitting a six-game road trip with an even 3-3 record right out of the All-Star break.

“It’s baseball, a lot of things happen,” Turner explained. “It doesn’t matter what team you’re playing, you gotta go out and do the right things and like I said, we fell a little short but we’ll regroup, off-day tomorrow and get back to work.