Red Sox Can't Be Afraid to Make Harsh Brayan Bello Rotation Decision

The daily routine for Boston Red Sox fans is becoming more ingrained than ever this week -- and infinitely more unpleasant.

Wake up the day after a brutal loss. Read doomsday pieces about how badly things are going. Turn on the game that night and watch Boston immediately fall into an insurmountable hole. The only decision is whether to change the channel or keep tuning in for more misery.

Friday night's 10-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles was a new low point for the Red Sox, largely because starting pitcher Brayan Bello got absolutely shellacked. And as they sit at 9-17, the second-worst record in all of Major League baseball, they've got to prepare for the possibility of a tricky decision.

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Red Sox should remove Bello from rotation if nothing changes

The eight earned runs and 13 hits Bello gave up in his 3 1/3 innings marked one of the worst outings in recent Boston memory. Bello's ERA on the season spiked to 9.00 through five starts, with an excruciatingly bad WHIP of 2.27.

Contrast that with lefty Payton Tolle, who put together one of the best starts we've seen from a Red Sox pitcher in his season debut against the New York Yankees on Thursday, striking out 11 batters in six innings. When Sonny Gray comes back, which could be in only a couple of weeks, the Red Sox are going to have to consider removing Bello from the rotation rather than Tolle, barring further injuries.

Bello has two minor-league options if the Red Sox are willing to use them. We've also seen plenty of teams in this situation find an excuse to put the pitcher in question on the 15-day injured list, which has the effect of optioning them to the minors after a brief reset.

If Bello couldn't get his act together on a rehab stint, the Red Sox might simply be forced to option him at that point anyway.

When the Red Sox inked Bello to a six-year, $55 million extension, they had to think there was minimal risk involved. The odds of a pitcher in his mid-twenties who had shown No. 2 starter upside becoming completely unusable by year three of that deal had to be astronomically low, didn't they?

Not to say that we've now arrived at that point, but a few more outings like this from Bello would necessitate drastic measures. The Red Sox can't punt on their season in favor of trying to get Bello back to normal, and from what we saw in the last two games, there's no good-faith argument that Bello would be better in the short term than Tolle.

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