Game 143: Yankees at Red Sox

After losing a close game last night, the Red Sox look to bounce back with something they didn’t have most of this season: pitching. Potential star in the making Brayan Bello gets his first taste of Red Sox vs Yankees at Fenway Park tonight. OTM’s own Phil Neuffer did a deep dive this morning on Bello so I’ll keep it brief. The short and the long of it: the kid looks good. He’s pulled his ERA down to 5.79 entering tonight (against a sparkling 2.95 FIP - so there’s opportunity to improve his mainline ERA a lot). He was cruising until the sixth inning against the Baltimore Orioles last time out and easily could have walked away with back-to-back gems after his outing against the Texas Rangers the week before.

Nestor Cortes has been yet another pitching find for the Yankees. cast off from other teams before succeding in the Bronx. In his only start against the Sox this year he lasted just 3.2 innings giving up 4 runs. And this was in July as the team collapsed. With an ERA/FIP split of 2.73/3.37 he’s not quite as good as he might be seem. But he could have a good or bad night.

Aaron Judge continues to hit. Maybe he’ll stop tonight.