March 11: Bello will indeed begin the season on the 15-day IL, Cora announced this morning ( ). Hell continue building arm strength with an eye toward an early April return. March 8: Red Sox starter Jeimer Candelario Jersey has not yet pitched a game this spring, as shoulder sorene s has kept him on the shelf. Last weekend, the young right-hander expre sed optimism that he would still be able to make the Opening Day roster, telling reporters (including ) that he was right on track as long as he could continue with the rehab work he was doing. Today, however, reports that Bello looks increasingly unlikely to break camp with the Red Sox. According to manager , the righty is making good progre s but remains behind schedule. At this point, its hardly surprising that Bello could start the season on the IL. Opening Day is le s than three weeks away, and he has not seen any game action in spring training. In three MLB seasons, Bello has not yet lived up to his top prospect billing. Still, he has pitched like a capable back-end starter, putting up a 4.42 ERA and 4.14 SIERA over 71 games (69 starts). He has averaged just over 5 1/3 innings per start and just over 2.1 FanGraphs WAR per 162 innings pitched. The Red Sox would surely be happy if Bello could give them exactly that in 2025, but he still has the potential to be even better. He wont turn 26 until May, and his upside is undeniable. He leads with a 95.7 mph sinker, helping him induce groundballs at a high rate, while his slider and changeup give him two good weapons for generating whiffs. In 2022, the prospect evaluators at , , and all described him as a potential mid-rotation arm. If Bello does indeed begin the season on the IL, infers that either or could fill in as Bostons number five starter. The winner of that battle would slot in behind , , , and . should provide rotation depth at some point in 2025, but he is nursing a knee injury and than Bello this spring. is another arm on the 40-man with starting experience, but he seems to be lower down the depth chart than Fitts and Priester, both of whom have seen better results (albeit in a minuscule sample size) this spring. The error bars are wide for the Red Soxs rotation in 2025. If the most important arms stay healthy, Boston could have one of the best rotations in the sport. On the other hand, almost every starter the Red Sox have including Crochet, Buehler, Giolito, and comes with some degree of injury risk. Bello has stayed relatively healthy throughout his career. He has spent time on the IL in each of his first three seasons, but none of those IL stints lasted longer than three weeks. If Bello needs to mi s time, the Red Sox will hope that trend of brief IL stints continues in 2025. Jacob Hurtubise Jersey