Brayan Bello was perfect through 3.1 innings in his first career game against the Colorado Rockies, pouring on the strikes as if they could quench the steamy weather that blanketed Fenway Park on Tuesday evening.
Perfection didn’t last, but Bello did. He tossed the first complete game of his big league career, in a 10-2 Red Sox triumph.
From the start, it was clear Bello was putting together something special. He opened the contest with a seven-pitch 1-2-3 first inning. All seven pitches were strikes.
He punched out two in the first, K’d the side in the second, and picked up an additional two swinging strikeouts in an orderly third.
“Really good, especially early on,” lauded manager Alex Cora. “The first third of the game, he was on point. Got some swing-and-misses, was on top of hitters, got ahead, stayed ahead, buried them. He was really good.”
Even after catcher Hunter Goodman’s one-out single in the fourth, the Red Sox righty was unflappable. Though he only picked up two more strikeouts in the contest, he kept the Rockies off the bases. When they started making contact, the strong gusting winds blowing in from right field kept the ball where Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela and Roman Anthony could make catches with relative ease. The Rockies didn’t get another hit until one out in the eighth.
Goodman’s ninth-inning blast ruined Bello’s shutout bid, but the game belonged to Bello all the same. He induced 15 swings-and-misses, and struck out a season-high 10 batters. In one of those classically odd baseball coincidences, it occurred day before the one-year anniversary of Bello’s second career double-digit strikeout performance.
It took the Red Sox righty 107 pitches to go the distance. He led with the sinker (35%), but fed the Rockies a mix of sweepers (25%), four-seamers (24%), changeups (13%), and mixed in three cutters. The changeup – a devastating pitch for him earlier in his career, but one he’s struggled to deploy consistently over the last two seasons – was especially promising.
“The sinker was good, the changeup was a lot better,” Cora assessed. “Just the eye test, his best changeup of the year… Overall he was in control.”
“My changeup was very good today,” Bello concurred (through translator Carlos Benitez). “I feel like I already have the feeling back for my changeup. I’m able to command it.”
Another big night for the Boston bats
If not for a one-out error in the bottom of the first, Kyle Freeland’s first three innings would have been perfect, too. The Boston bats, so effective against southpaws all season, made little noise against the Rockies starter, who, until one out in the sixth, yielded only two singles and a walk.
But a baseball game can turn on a dime, and as steel- and charcoal-hued clouds began gathering over the ballpark and the first bolts of lightning cracked in the skies over Jersey Street, the Red Sox turned the tables.
No, they flipped the table and slammed it down, smashed to smithereens. They tallied 10 runs on 11 hits, but did all of their scoring between the second out of the sixth and the end of the seventh.
Romy Gonzalez’s one-out single got the ball rolling in the sixth. After Roman Anthony followed with a walk, Rob Refsnyder struck out but Trevor Story ended the stalemate with an RBI single to right.
That was the end of Freeland’s night, but only the beginning of the Boston barrage. Rafaela greeted Juan Mejia with a two-run double, and Duran brought his fellow outfielder home with an RBI single.
The lightning ceased. The Red Sox did not.
Facing Jake Bird in the seventh, Marcelo Mayer’s one-out single opened the door. Gonzalez quickly drove him in with an RBI triple, which befuddled center fielder Brenton Doyle. Anthony drove Gonzalez home with an RBI single, and Refsnyder joined him on the diamond with a walk.
Story sent the first pitch he saw 414 feet to the Green Monster seats.
Long gone, but not as long as what happened next.
Duran blasted one over the Boston bullpen 456 feet, to be precise. Less than 24 hours after Gonzalez blasted a 454-foot homer to tie Angels star Mike Trout for the longest long ball at Fenway this season, Duran surpassed them both. And for an American League-leading 15th time this season, the Red Sox run total was in the double digits.
A flood alert was in effect in the area until 2 a.m., but the skies never opened.
Bello returned to the mound inning after inning. He extended his streak to seven consecutive starts of at least five frames, then completed six for the sixth time in that span. Once he recorded the first out of the eighth, it was his longest start of the season. By the end of the frame, he’d matched his career-high in innings.
“He was efficient, so I wasn’t going to take him out,” Cora said. “He was under control today, the whole time.”
Though the Boston bullpen was motionless throughout the contest, there was a moment of pause when Bello didn’t immediately emerge from the dugout with his teammates for the top of the ninth. He couldn’t find his PitchCom, he later explained.
The crowd of 30,169 was on its feet when Bello walked out for the ninth, and they booed Goodman as he rounded the bases after scuttling the shutout bid.
And when Bello struck out Ryan McMahon on a foul tip to complete the contest moments later, the Fenway faithful roared triumphantly along with him.
Game over.
Complete game over.
“It was very, very exciting,” Bello said. “I tried not to show too much emotion in the ninth inning so I was able to complete it, but yeah it was, inside it was super happy and very emotional about it.”
At 26 years and 52 days old, Bello is the youngest Red Sox pitcher to throw a complete game since Clay Buchholz on June 4, 2010.
Unless you count the six-inning complete game Bello tossed as a rookie, against the Yankees on Sept. 25, 2022. He didn’t.
“I didn’t know that the New York game was a complete game, that (it) counted as a complete game,” he said.
The Red Sox are 48-45, including 7-1 in their last eight games. Tuesday’s victory cemented their third consecutive series win.
The Fenway grounds crew laid the tarp over the diamond just before 10 p.m. Rain began to pelt the emerald cathedral at 10:15.
But like Goodman’s homer, the deluge was too late. Nothing could spoil this special night of Boston baseball.
“To be able to complete it,” Bello said, “it was a dream come true.”
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