The Red Sox announced Sunday morning that the club has activated right-hander Brayan Bello from the 15-day injured list. Right-hander Josh Winckowski was optioned to Triple-A in the corresponding move. Bello is slated to start Sunday afternoon’s game against the Nationals at Fenway Park.
Bello, who will celebrate his 25th birthday later this week, has been on the shelf since late April due to a bout of lat tightness. Before the injury, the young righty had pitched solidly through five starts with the Red Sox this year with a 3.04 ERA and 4.06 FIP in 26 2/3 innings of work.
He’s struck out a respectable 23.6 percent of batters faced and generated groundballs at a 51.3 percent clip during that time, although a whopping 19 percent of his fly balls leaving the yard for home runs stands out as a potential red flag in an otherwise impressive early-season performance.
That success on the mound has been par for the course among Red Sox starters this year, as the club’s 2.42 rotation ERA is the best figure in the majors to this point in the season thanks to excellent starts from the likes of Kutter Crawford and Tanner Houck.
With righty Nick Pivetta having also been activated from the injured list in recent days, the club’s rotation is once again approaching full strength. While righty Garrett Whitlock remains on the shelf due to an oblique strain, righty Cooper Criswell has performed admirably in his absence with a 2.10 ERA and 3.94 FIP in 25 2/3 innings of work.
Making room for Bello on the active roster is Winckowski, who will turn 26 next month. It’s a somewhat surprising move given his success over the past two seasons. The righty was among the best multi-inning relief arms in all of baseball last year as he posted a 2.88 ERA with a 3.91 FIP in 84 1/3 innings of work across 60 appearances. He hasn’t quite kept that performance up this year, although he’s still enjoyed solid results with a 3.33 ERA and 4.27 FIP in 24 1/3 innings of work.
While that sort of performance would seem to warrant a spot in the club’s bullpen over other optionable arms such as Cam Booser, it’s worth noting that Winckowski’s peripherals have taken a significant turn for the worse this year.
The right-hander has struggled to miss bats this year as his strikeout rate has fallen from a respectable 22.3 percent last year to just 16.8 percent this season.
Meanwhile, his walk rate has ticked up from 8.4 percent to 9.7 percent and his ground-ball rate has dropped more than five points after sitting at a strong 51.2 percent last season.
Those shaky peripheral numbers suggest that regression may have been on the horizon for Winckowski had he remained in the majors, a possibility supported by his elevated 4.53 xFIP and 5.43 xERA.
Going forward, Winckowski will head to the Triple-A level and look to recapture what made him such an effective reliever for the club last season while acting as an optionable depth arm for the club to lean on alongside former NPB starter Naoyuki Uwasawa.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox appear poised to lean on right-hander Justin Slaten to fill the sort of high-leverage, multi-inning role they turned to Winckowski for last year. Slaten has impressed in 13 contests this year with a 1.74 ERA and 2.34 FIP in 20 2/3 innings of work.
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