{"id":540894,"date":"2026-03-23T18:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T18:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/540894\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T18:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T18:41:12","slug":"red-sox-insider-predicts-surprise-pitcher-as-true-no-2-in-breakout-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/540894\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Insider Predicts Surprise Pitcher As ‘True No. 2’ In ‘Breakout Season’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Sox Insider Predicts Surprise Pitcher As ‘True No. 2’ In ‘Breakout Season’<\/a> originally appeared on NESN<\/a>. Add NESN as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Boston Red Sox<\/a>‘s starting rotation is loaded<\/a> to begin the 2026 MLB season.<\/p>\n

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At the front, the Red Sox have reigning AL Cy Young runner-up Garrett Crochet and three-time All-Star Sonny Gray. Venezuelan left-hander<\/a> Ranger Suarez is building up<\/a> after a relatively light workload between spring training and the World Baseball Classic but is expected to be a huge part of the unit.<\/p>\n

Brayan Bello is the longest-tenured member of the starters as he enters his fifth season with Boston and offseason trade acquisition Johan Oviedo is likely to serve<\/a> as the No. 5 starter.<\/p>\n

Longtime Red Sox reporter Ian Browne of MLB.com made some preseason predictions for the team on Monday, including outfielder Roman Anthony being the team MVP<\/a> and Crochet as Boston’s Cy Young.<\/p>\n

Browne’s “bold prediction” was about Bello.<\/p>\n

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“Though Gray and Suarez were brought in to be the Nos. 2 and 3 starters in whichever order, Brayan Bello will wind up being the true No. 2 in a breakout season,” the insider wrote<\/a>. “People forget what strong a season the righty was having last year until a September swoon and a postseason start that was cut short at 28 pitches. If Bello can get his changeup back to where it was prior to last season, his arsenal is nasty and deep.”<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old went 11-9 with career-lows in ERA (3.35) and WHIP (1.23) across a career-high 166 2\/3 innings pitched covering 29 games (28 starts) during the 2025 campaign.<\/p>\n

More MLB: New Red Sox Pitcher Claims He Has ‘No Concerns’ After Inconsistent Spring<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Sox Insider Predicts Surprise Pitcher As ‘True No. 2’ In ‘Breakout Season’ originally appeared on NESN. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[202176,242081,374,47417,72017,47418,184104,65823,363,32036,16344,148589,99],"class_list":["post-540894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-2026-mlb-season","tag-al-cy-young","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-brayan-bello","tag-cy-young","tag-garrett-crochet","tag-ian-browne","tag-johan-oviedo","tag-mlb","tag-ranger-suarez","tag-roman-anthony","tag-sonny-gray","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}