A week ago at this time, Brayan Bello wasn’t at home or relaxing like most of his teammates during the All-Star break.

The 24-year-old returned to his native Dominican Republic, but rather than head to his home in Samana, he spent the entire break working at the Red Sox Dominican Academy in El Toro, 30 minutes east of Santo Domingo, which is located about an hour and a half from Samana.

It wasn’t something the Red Sox asked him to do; it was the opposite, really. Bello, who makes his second start of the second half Wednesday in Oakland, asked the Red Sox if he could throw a side session and work out at the facilities over the break. The Red Sox obliged.

“He did it on his own. I didn’t even know,” said Red Sox assistant GM Eddie Romero. “He reached out to our guys locally down there that he knows and said he was going to swing by. We tell the guys all the time this is your house, if we’re closed, we’ll open, so he coordinated with them, showed up, threw a side session, came back the next day to get a full workout in and chatted with the players there for a few minutes, and that was all Brayan driven.”

Of all Red Sox players, Bello was among the most deserving of a break after a tremendous first half in which he began to solidify himself as one of the best young pitchers in the American League. The right-hander ended the first half with a 3.04 ERA over 14 starts with a 20.8 percent strikeout rate. In his second-to-last start before the break, Bello carried a no-hitter into the eighth inning against the Marlins, and in his last start, he beat the Rangers, the AL’s top offensive team. Manager Alex Cora tabbed Bello for the first start of the second half in Chicago. Bello could have reveled in a strong first half, but he chose to keep working.