MLB Notebook: Red Sox expected to hire GM this offseason, Brayan Bello not sharp, reliever out for the season, a look around the league

The Red Sox are preparing to add a general manager to their front office this offseason, a move designed to give chief baseball officer Craig Breslow a second-in-command in the club’s front office.

Since taking over baseball operations in 2023, Breslow has operated without a general manager. Boston has plenty of internal candidates that could fill the role, including assistant general manager Paul Toboni, who has been with the organization since 2015.

“I have a pretty good idea of what will benefit the organization,” Breslow said in an interview. “We spent the last two years … trying to get ourselves set up with an eye on this sustainable organizational health that we talk about all the time. Finding someone who can continue to push us forward and advance this vision will be really helpful.”

Toboni, 35, was initially hired as an intern and has risen through the ranks of the Red Sox organization. He’s served as an area scout, director of amateur scouting, vice president of amateur scouting and player development, senior vice president, and assistant general manager.

Boston has been without a general manager since Breslow replaced Chaim Bloom. While Bloom was in office, he promoted Brian O’Halloran to the position of general manager, but he’s since moved to the role of executive vice president of baseball operations.

The Red Sox have other internal candidates, including longtime executive Raquel Ferreira, assistant general manager Eddie Romero, Michael Groopman, and recently hired Taylor Smith, who came over from Tampa Bay last offseason.

“In my mind, this is less about a No. 1 and a No. 2 and more about a partner, someone who can challenge the organization and challenge me and push each other,” Breslow said.

Toboni has been a candidate for the Nationals’ top front office job. Washington has been actively trying to hire someone to lead their baseball operations department after firing Mike Rizzo in July.

“I would say that is a second-order effect,” Breslow said. “You want to build the operation that is going to be the most successful, as opposed to trying to find other incentives to make the hire.

“When the time comes, the right thing for the organization and the right thing to help our leadership team is to have a clear No. 2. That in and of itself is enough of a driver.”

BRAYAN BELLO STUMBLES

Brayan Bello’s mastery of the New York Yankees finally came to a halt on Saturday night.

The right-hander has been dominant against the Bronx Bombers, owning a 1.95 ERA through 10 career games, the best mark by any major leaguer with a minimum of 10 starts against them in the Live Ball Era.

Bello (11-7) labored from the start, hitting the first batter he faced before allowing a double and a walk. New York capitalized with two quick runs in the opening frame, snapping Bello’s scoreless streak and setting the tone for the night.

He finished with five hits, four runs allowed, three walks, and four strikeouts, serving up a solo home run and hitting one batter. For a pitcher who had looked untouchable against the Yankees earlier this year, the lack of command was a surprising turn.

“It was a bad start for me,” Bello said through a team translator. “I don’t think I was competing from the first inning to the last inning.”

Bello’s start ended a stretch of dominance that included back-to-back seven-inning shutouts against New York earlier in the year. His ERA against the Yankees jumped from 0.00 to 2.25 in one night.

The Sox’ right-hander has been a quiet tormentor of the Yankees, and one bad start won’t define his season. The timing of the loss was punishing as the Red Sox fell further behind the Yankees for the top wild-card spot in the AL.

Boston will look to avoid a three-game sweep on Sunday afternoon and have their ace, Garrett Crochet, on the mound. The Red Sox and Yankees playing a crucial September game with added playoff implications is refreshing.

Despite their chances of clinching a postseason berth, Alex Cora wants to finish the season strong before worrying about what the lineup card will look like in the playoffs.

“I think we should stop talking about October, to be honest with you,” Cora said. “There’s a lot of stuff going on, and we have to play better. You know, I’m not saying we’re in a bad spot, but I think we have to wait to see if October is part of this.”

Overall, Bello has allowed four runs in his last four starts against the Yankees. Over his last 17 games since June 15, he has gone 9-6 with a 2.91 ERA and has held opponents to a .216 batting average.

Boston will need their top three starters, Crochet, Bello, and Lucas Giolito, to come up big in October if the Sox are going to make a deep run. Bello will need to offer consistency if he expects to take his game to the next level.

LIAM HENDRIKS' SEASON LIKELY OVER

Red Sox reliever Liam Hendriks' tenure in Boston is likely over.

The righty has effectively been ruled out for the rest of the season due to an occurrence of forearm tightness popping up while rehabbing a hip injury. The veteran will hit the free agent market this winter and has his sights set on pitching in 2026.

“Very much so,” said Hendriks when asked if he planned to keep pitching. “I got a new elbow for a reason. If I wasn’t going to continue playing, I probably wouldn’t have gone through that whole process.

“There’s definitely a lot of desire left for me to get back out there because I really feel like I haven’t come back, even since the cancer journey.”

Hendriks signed a two-year, $10 million contract with the Sox prior to the start of the 2024 season. He was expected to join the club’s bullpen late in the season, but various setbacks from his recovery from Tommy John surgery forced him to be shut down while on a rehab assignment last September.

He opened spring training healthy and made the club out of camp but missed the first three weeks of the season due to a nerve issue in his elbow. Hendriks returned to baseball on Easter and struggled, pitching to a 6.59 ERA in 14 games before he went back on the injured list in late May with a hip issue.

His injury was initially misdiagnosed as a hernia, and then he began to feel an issue in his arm when he was throwing from 120 feet.

“I’ve been a little hesitant with my lower body and pushing off,” he said. “Got a little soreness up top (in the forearm); making sure we can handle that, and now that has been that hiccup in the thing which, unfortunately, most likely, puts this season out.

“We’re kind of letting it settle down for a little bit and see how it goes. We’ll tackle that next road when it comes. I’m sure that’ll be on the horizon, just to get a grasp and making sure there’s nothing more negative coming up.”

It’s highly unlikely Boston would use Hendriks at any point this postseason after missing so much time during the regular season. He was largely ineffective in high-leverage situations this season, and if he doesn’t pitch again for the Red Sox, he will have tossed just 13 2/3 innings with the club.

BOLD STATEMENT

Yankees’ Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit his 29th homer of the season off Brayan Bello in the 5-3 win over the Red Sox on Saturday afternoon.

Fresh off their second straight win over the Sox at Fenway Park, Chisholm Jr. declared the Yankees as the American League’s team to beat.

“We’re the best team in the league,” Chisholm said. “Any team that thinks they’re better than us, they should know that when we step on the field, we’re coming with relentlessness. We’re coming to step on necks. We’re not here to play around.”

New York has been clicking on all cylinders, owning an MLB-best record of 21-9 since Aug. 11. Despite that, the Yankees have been looking up at the Blue Jays all season long.

“We’ve said it all year long: we’ve been playing to everybody else’s level instead of our own level,” Chisholm said. “We’ve been losing games ourselves, making errors, just having poor at-bats, and stuff like that. We finally looked ourselves in the mirror and realized that we’re the team to beat. That’s how we’ve been stepping on the field for the past two weeks.”

If New York is unable to catch Toronto for the AL East crown, they’re in the driver’s seat to win the top wild-card spot.

AROUND THE LEAGUE

- The Brewers became the first major league team to clinch a playoff spot this season. Milwaukee has the best record in baseball, sitting at 91-58, and will head into the postseason attempting to secure the franchise's first World Series win.

- Cubs general manager Carter Hawkins is a top candidate to take over as Nationals president of baseball operations.

- Kyle Schwarber is going to be in hot demand this offseason. He’s had a massive season, hitting .244 with 51 homers and 126 RBI and is poised for a huge payday.

“I think he’s one of the more tricky projections in the game,” an NL executive said to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. “He is just different than other guys who have been in similar situations because he seems to just be getting better at an age when that shouldn’t be the case.”

USA Today’s Bob Nightengale projects Schwarber to land a four-year deal in excess of $120 million. There’ll be a number of suitors lining up for Schwarber this winter, and the Red Sox should be one of those teams. Philadelphia will do everything they can to bring back the slugger.

"If something works out here, it works out here. There's interest on both sides," Schwarber told Jon Heyman of the New York Post. "I'm sure whenever we get to the end of the year, and hopefully it's us holding a trophy at the end, I'm sure there'll be conversations.

"Sometimes hopes and dreams don't turn out the way they're meant to be.

Schwarber’s lack of positional flexibility limits him to just a DH, but he could play first base or left field in a pinch. Because of that, it could rule the Dodgers (Shohei Ohtani), Yankees (Giancarlo Stanton), and Giants (Rafael Devers) out of the Schwarber sweepstakes.

A good comp to what Schwarber could get this winter is what the Red Sox signed J.D. Martinez back in the spring of 2018. Boston signed Martinez to a five-year, $110 million deal. The only difference was Martinez was entering his age 30 season, versus Schwarber, who will be 33 next March.

- Anthony Rizzo announced his retirement this week and was recognized by the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

- Walker Buehler made his first start for the Phillies on Friday night, and it got off to a great start.

Buehler, who signed a minor league deal with Philadelphia within a couple days of Boston releasing him, made a start at Citizens Bank Park against the Royals. He held Kansas City to one run on five hits while striking out three batters and walking just one in five innings of work and earned the win.

With Buehler in the mix, he can give the Phillies some rotational pitching depth the rest of the season and then could offer them help out of the bullpen. In the postseason, Buehler owns a career 3.04 ERA in 19 appearances, including closing the door on the Yankees to clinch the World Series crown last year.

- Tigers ace Tarik Skubal avoided injury and received “all good news” after his MRI scan came back clean.

Skubal felt some tightness on his left side on Friday, putting a scare into Tigers’ fans ahead of the postseason.

"We've got a lot of work to do to get him through this soreness," Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. "I don't like him having any soreness whatsoever, or any of our guys. Clearly, we were all waiting for the scan and the evaluation, and to have positive news is a good step forward."

The 28-year-old Skubal was charged with four runs and four hits in 3 1/3 innings in Friday night’s loss to Miami. The reigning AL Cy Young winner is 13-5 with a 2.26 ERA in 29 starts for the AL Central leaders, striking out 224 in 183 1/3 innings.