For multiple seasons now, Brayan Bello has been a peculiar right-handed pitcher. At times, he’s flashed the potential to be a front-of-the-rotation arm, but at his lowest points, he’s looked like he could barely hang with major league hitters. In 2026, we’ve seen more of the latter, as it’s been a disastrous start for the 27-year-old.
Through his first 32.2 innings, Bello has posted an abysmal ERA of 7.44, a WHIP of 1.93, and 24 strikeouts to 16 walks. In every sense of the meaning, Bello is getting hammered by opposing offenses right now, and the path to future success looks tricky.
For starters, Bello’s go-to offering, his sinker, has performed extremely poorly so far this season after being a very reliable pitch in the past. Opponents are currently hitting .369 against it with a .418 wOBA. Also, the pitch has produced a hard-hit rate of 50.0%, a number over 10% higher than last season.
Bello’s location with this pitch could be partially to blame. His heat map indicates that he doesn’t have a great feel for the pitch at all right now.
Not only is he throwing a lot of dead-zone sinkers when he throws it for strikes, but he’s struggling to even get it over the plate. He went from throwing it for strikes over 65% of the time to now recording a strike rate of just 61.4% with the pitch, which isn’t a good sign whatsoever.
Bello’s cutter is in a very similar place as well. Although he’s throwing it for strikes more (72.1% strike rate), he’s leaving it right over the heart of the plate, and it’s been hit well as a result.
Between his sinker and cutter, these two pitches make up for nearly two-thirds of his pitch usage, and without either of these being reliable for him, he’s in a very tough spot to succeed. For Bello, he needs to avoid the heart of the plate at all costs, or else he risks this trend becoming even worse in little time.
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