Three takeaways from Brayan Bello's major league debut and another series loss for the Red Sox.
1. There's more from Bello.
If you came away from Wednesday's debut and asked: "That's it? That's the guy I was supposed to get excited about?'' The answer is no. That wasn't the Brayan Bello the Red Sox have seen work his way up through the system, dominating at every level. Bello fell behind far too often. And when he fell behind, he had to make some predictable pitches in hitters' counts. And even when he wasn't behind, he wasn't locating very well.
Bello and Alex Cora swore up and down that the rookie pitcher wasn't unnerved, that he didn't feel overwhelmed. But really, how could he not be? Bello was pitching in a big-league environment for the first time, against major league opponents, and in front of far more people who've ever watched him pitch. Of course there were nerves at work.
But everyone needs that first one out of the way. Josh Winckowski has proven he belongs in a major league rotation, but he didn't look that way in his debut, either, walking hitters and struggling to find his rhythm. The good ones learn from their mistakes. Bello made more than his share.
It's unclear when his next start will be for Boston, but when it takes place, he'll be better than he was Wednesday night. In that regard, he'll be like almost every other pitcher who's ever reached the big leagues -- with the possible exception of Billy Rohr.
2. Divisional play remains an issue.
It's the first week of July, and the Red Sox still haven't won a series against another team from their own division. If you're keeping score at home, the Red Sox are 0-2 against Tampa Bay, 0-3 against Toronto, 0-2 against Baltimore and 0-1 against the Yankees, who arrived for a four-game set Thursday night.
Incredibly, that sort of poor play against division rivals hasn't croaked the Red Sox yet. They remain tied for second place in the division with Tampa Bay and are tied for the wildcard lead.
But given what's on the docket, that can't continue. The Sox have three series left before the All-Star break, and all are against either the Yankees or the Rays.
The Sox were able to re-insert themselves into contention, starting in the second week of May, by methodically winning series after series -- all, of course, against non-East opponents. The simple practice of winning two-of-three in one series after another had them vaulting over others in the standings.
But in the last week, the Sox have lost three series -- two of them to AL East opponents. And if they don't start figuring out how to win some of those, they're going to eventually undo all the progress they've made against teams from other divisions.
"(We've got to) play better baseball,'' said Cora. "We are where we're at. We won 45 games in the first half and we know where we're at in the standings and the things that we have to do. Obviously disappointed that this is the way we've been playing in the division. But we know we can hang with them, we're going to start playing better baseball and we're going to start winning games.''
As has been noted, it's not about an inability to beat quality teams. The Red Sox have done that with Cleveland, St. Louis and Houston.
But with 76 games against the East -- almost half the schedule -- they had better figure out how to play better than .333 (9-18) ball.
3. It's the offense....more than the pitching.
It would be easy to suggest that the Sox are struggling because of all the injuries to their pitching staff. Currently, due to either changing roles or injuries, the Sox had only (1) pitcher from the Opening Day rotation make his most recent start (Nick Pivetta).
For the most part, Wednesday night being an exception, the guys they've plugged in to take over for Nathan Eovaldi and Garret Whitlock and Michael Wacha have given them a chance to win games.
The issue, over the last two weeks, has been the offense. There's been a dramatic drop-off in production up and down the lineup, with little being supplied by the Big Three of Rafael Devers, J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts. While the Red Sox have, from time to time, been carried by the occasional hot spurt from someone lower in the order, they only go as far as the middle of the lineup takes them.
Lately, that's been right into the ditch. The Sox haven't scored more than four runs in any of their last five games. And with the Yankees coming to town, it's unlikely they're going to win a lot of 2-1 or 3-2 games in the next four days.
Cora maintained that the Sox found something in the last day or two about opponents' tendencies. In all likelihood, it's probably no more complicated that failing to do what they couldn't do in the first five weeks of the season -- lay off pitches at the edge of the strike zone and beyond, and instead, wait for pitches with which they can do damage.
That served them well for that stretch from May 10 until about 10 days ago. It's time to revisit that and flex their muscles the way they did for all of June, when they were the most formidable offense in the game.