Red Sox Notes: Boston Relies On Young Stars For Road Win

The Boston Red Sox hurdled early adversity to earn a hard-fought 7-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday afternoon at Tropicana Field.

The ballclub received key performances from two prominent young players who delivered in the victory.

Brayan Bello struggled on the mound in the first inning, surrendering a two-run single to Brandon Lowe and an RBI double from Harold Ramírez. From there, Bello made a mechanical adjustment and flipped a switch on his performance. The right-hander retired 11 straight batters and mixed his pitches well.

“He made some adjustments,” Alex Cora said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “He was good. He made pitches when he had to. Picked his battles and gave us six strong innings.”

After the tough start, Bello returned to the dugout and encouraged his team to make some noise with the bats with plenty of game left to play.

“I really didn’t want to lose this game,” Bello said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “I was just trying to do my best to motivate them and give them some life. Thankfully, it worked out.”

Boston received a game-changing swing in the sixth inning from another young contributor. Tampa Bay’s Chris Devenski came on to face Triston Casas with a solid arsenal of off-speed pitches. The Boston first baseman took a changeup deep to left-center field for a three-run home run that gave Boston a 4-3 lead. The blast was the second already in September for Casas.

“He has a really unorthodox delivery,” Casas told Jahmai Webster, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “I know his changeup is elite and has a lot of fade. I felt like they were trying to get me to ground into a double play in that at-bat. I missed on a good side of the ball and it went pretty far. It gave us the lead and we didn’t look back.”

“He’s a good hitter, man,” Cora said of Casas’ growth this season. “He’s patient with his process. He dominates the strike zone. That’s the most important thing. He’s hitting the ball the other way now. I think that was the last step this season. You see the results.”

In the bottom half of the inning, Bello fired one of his biggest pitches of the day. With two runners on and two outs, the Boston starter fanned Ramírez with a slider to escape the jam. A fired-up Bello left the mound with the lead in a battle-tested outing with just three first-inning runs allowed and seven strikeouts.

“I got out of that inning without any runs,” Bello added. “I think any pitcher would be that excited to get out of that inning with the circumstances.”

Cora noted that the young starter has improved greatly in 2023 in bearing down after allowing runs early.

“Compared to last year, a lot better,” Cora said. “There was a game here last year that that happened and he was down in the tunnel. That’s part of it. I always said that the last out of last season with the bases loaded against Toronto. He learned a lot from that pitch. He’s in a good place. He keeps getting better. That’s good for us.”

Casas and Bello are undoubtedly rising as cornerstone players in the next core of talent for the Red Sox. On Monday, both players stepped up to help Boston win.

Here are more notes from Monday’s Red Sox-Rays game:

— The Red Sox moved to 4 1/2 games behind the Texas Rangers in the American League Wild-Card race.

— Bello completed six innings of work for the third time in his last four starts.

— The Red Sox snapped a 13-game losing streak against the Rays at Tropicana Field dating back to April 23, 2022.

— Adam Duvall celebrated his 35th birthday Monday with an RBI single to put Boston on the board in the fourth inning.

— Masataka Yoshida homered for the second straight day.

— The Red Sox continue their three-game series at Tropicana Field on Tuesday against the Rays. First pitch is scheduled for 6:40 p.m. ET, and you can watch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.