In what had become the worst-kept secret around the Red Sox over the past few days, Payton Tolle will make his 2026 debut for Boston in the series finale against the Yankees.
Tolle gets the nod after the Red Sox reshuffled their rotation, pushing Brayan Bello to Friday’s opener in Baltimore. The move also gives Garrett Crochet and Connelly Early an extra day of rest.
Boston needed another starter after losing Sonny Gray to a right hamstring injury on Monday, which landed him on the injured list.
Boston will turn to Tolle in hopes of salvaging the series against New York, a series in which the offense has shown little life, managing just one run on a Jarren Duran RBI single Wednesday night.
The Red Sox have totaled just one run on nine hits through the first two games, both losses. They rank 26th in MLB with 90 runs, averaging 3.75 per game, and sit dead last in home runs with just 13 this season.
“I’d say we’re putting pressure on ourselves,” Duran said. “I think that we’re just trying to do too much. We’re trying to dig ourselves out of a hole. But at the end of the day, I mean, we’re not really in a hole. It’s still early.”
With a loss, the Red Sox would sink even deeper into the American League East basement. Boston enters six games behind its archrival, the Yankees, and firmly in last place.
The team knows it’s struggling and is searching for anything to spark some life across the roster.
“We still have so much time to just play baseball,” Duran said. “And I feel like that’s when we’re at our best, is when we’re just playing. We are really young and it’s just getting through those bumps and bruises. I remember I took my bumps and bruises coming up playing in the big leagues. We’ve got some young guys that are in here for the first time and it’s just one of those things. It’s just baseball. We’re going to get through it together.”
All eyes are now on Tolle, who hasn’t pitched in a Triple-A game since April 12, when the WooSox were home against the Columbus Clippers. He went five scoreless frames, allowing three hits and a walk with six strikeouts.
In three starts for Worcester this season, Tolle is 2-0 with a 3.00 ERA, notching 19 strikeouts while walking just four in 15 innings.
Tolle returns to the big leagues, having last pitched in the postseason against the Yankees, to face Walpole, Mass. native Cam Schlittler, who has been carving up lineups since the beginning of the season.
Schittler enters Thursday’s series finale 2-1 with a 1.95 ERA with 36 strikeouts a 0.76 WHIP in 27 2/3 innings. The last time he was on the mound to face the Red Sox, it was Game 3 of the American League Wild Card round, when he dominated Boston’s lineup, tossing eight innings of shutout ball and struck out 12 batters.
Tolle can’t worry about who is opposing him on the mound, he’ll need to deal with a Yankees’ lineup that has