{"id":623540,"date":"2026-04-23T15:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/623540\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T15:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:30:12","slug":"red-sox-to-recall-payton-tolle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/623540\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox To Recall Payton Tolle"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Red Sox are calling up left-hander Payton Tolle<\/a> to start Thursday\u2019s series finale against the Yankees, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com<\/a>. It\u2019ll be the touted young lefty\u2019s first major league action of the season and just the fourth big league start of his career.<\/p>\n

Tolle currently sits 11th on Baseball America\u2019s ranking of the sport\u2019s top-100 prospects. He\u2019s 15th over at MLB.com. The 23-year-old reported to camp this spring in hopes of securing a rotation spot after making a brief MLB debut late last season, but fellow top prospect and left-hander Connelly Early<\/a> wound up claiming the lone rotation vacancy. Tolle opened the season in Triple-A Worcester, where he\u2019s been excellent. In three starts, he\u2019s totaled 15 innings and held opponents to five earned runs (3.00 ERA) on 12 hits and four walks with 19 strikeouts.<\/p>\n

The Sox spent much of the offseason bolstering their pitching depth. While younger arms like Hunter Dobbins<\/a> and Richard Fitts<\/a> were sent out in trades, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow<\/a> also acquired Sonny Gray<\/a> and Johan Oviedo<\/a> via the trade market and signed longtime Phillies southpaw Ranger Suarez<\/a> as a free agent.<\/p>\n

Just under a month into the season, that depth has already been tested. Oviedo made just one appearance before being diagnosed with a flexor strain and placed on the 60-day injured list. Gray landed on the 15-day IL with a hamstring strain after exiting his most recent start in the middle of the third inning. Left-hander Patrick Sandoval<\/a> still hasn\u2019t pitched for Boston after signing a two-year, $18.25MM contract two offseasons ago. The Sox knew he\u2019d miss most of 2025 rehabbing from UCL surgery, but he didn\u2019t make it back at all last year and is now dealing with biceps discomfort<\/a> that popped up during a minor league rehab stint. Righty Kutter Crawford<\/a> missed the 2025 season due to a knee injury and wrist surgery. He\u2019s also on a rehab stint but also could be facing a setback after experiencing elbow discomfort during a minor league start.<\/p>\n

Counting Tanner Houck<\/a> \u2014 who won\u2019t pitch this season after undergoing Tommy John surgery late last August \u2014 the Sox have an entire rotation\u2019s worth of arms on the injured list. At the moment, their healthy starting options include Suarez, Early, Garrett Crochet<\/a>, Brayan Bello<\/a> and, once this move is official, Tolle. Right-hander Tyler Uberstine<\/a> and lefty Jake Bennett<\/a> are on the 40-man roster and pitching well in Worcester; Uberstine made his MLB debut earlier this season when he pitched 2 2\/3 innings in a long relief appearance. He\u2019s since been optioned back to Triple-A.<\/p>\n

All of the injuries could give Tolle some runway to turn this into more than a spot start. There\u2019s no expectation that Gray\u2019s injury will necessitate a long-term absence, but the Sox have yet to put a firm timetable on his recovery, either. Even if it\u2019s just a minimum stint, that\u2019d be enough for Tolle to make multiple starts.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox don\u2019t have an off day until April 30, so they won\u2019t have the luxury of skipping this spot in the rotation if they want to send Tolle down and bring up another arm for the \u2018pen. However, they could still option Tolle and then call up Bennett or Uberstine to take the ball when this spot in the rotation comes up again next Tuesday. Alternatively, if Bello continues to struggle as he has through his first four starts (6.75 ERA, 14.1% strikeout rate, 13% walk rate in 18 2\/3 innings), it\u2019s hard not to wonder whether the currently 9-15 Red Sox might consider at least a short-term change. And, as always, the possibility of injuries elsewhere on the staff could create a more lasting opportunity for Tolle.<\/p>\n

Tolle, the No. 50 overall draft pick in 2024, impressed in his first big league start last summer, tossing 5 1\/3 innings and holding the Pirates to a pair of runs on three hits and two walks with eight punchouts. His next two starts were shaky, however, and the Sox moved him to the \u2018pen for the final few weeks of the season. He wound up posting a 6.06 ERA in a small sample of 16 1\/3 innings, but Tolle\u2019s upper-90s four-seamer and 90 mph cutter were on full display. He fanned more than one quarter of his opponents and notched a huge 14.8% swinging-strike rate. This year in Triple-A, he\u2019s added a two-seamer and upped the usage rates on both his curveball and changeup, giving him a more well-rounded arsenal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Red Sox are calling up left-hander Payton Tolle to start Thursday\u2019s series finale against the Yankees, per…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,60754,82],"class_list":["post-623540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-payton-tolle","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}