{"id":131432,"date":"2026-02-12T17:16:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T17:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/131432\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T17:16:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T17:16:24","slug":"red-sox-rookie-hasnt-re-watched-playoff-start-or-talked-to-cam-schlittler-about-their-battle-in-bronx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/131432\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox rookie hasn\u2019t re-watched playoff start \u2014\u00a0or talked to Cam Schlittler about their battle in Bronx"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 Red Sox lefties Connelly Early and Payton Tolle experienced plenty of firsts in 2025<\/a>, including their major league debuts and pitching in a playoff series at Yankee Stadium. One thing they didn\u2019t do, though? Step foot in the major league clubhouse at JetBlue Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s their first big league camp, right?\u201d said manager Alex Cora. \u201cThat\u2019s very important and we reminded everybody yesterday that it\u2019s a new season and we have a lot of new guys in camp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early and Tolle, who both rode strong seasons in the minors to late-year debuts, were so far from big league consideration this time last year that they spent spring training on the minor league side of the JetBlue Park complex. Making his professional debut, Tolle started at High-A and dominated at three levels before debuting on Labor Day weekend. Early, in his second pro season, started in Double-A and pitched well enough to debut on September 9 before starting Game 3 of the Wild Card Series in the Bronx less than a month later. It would have been unthinkable, just 365 days ago, that either pitcher would have gotten meaningful outs in October for the Red Sox.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happened, though, as Tolle got a big out in the eighth inning of a close Game 2 loss and Early, making just his fifth major league start, pitched 3 \u2154 innings in Game 3.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a taste of it,\u201d Tolle said. \u201cIt took a little bit to kick back and relax and be like, \u2018Woah, this was really cool and this was a good year and I\u2019m proud of what we did.\u2019 Three games wasn\u2019t enough. We want more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The line from Early\u2019s outing, in which he was charged with four runs (three earned) and six hits, looks worse than it was considering Boston\u2019s shoddy defense behind him. In a very small sample size, the difference between his ERA (7.36) and FIP (0.68) tells the story. The 23-year-old spent much of his offseason working on his nascent golf game and fine-tuning his pitch mix ahead of 2026. Taking time to watch a replay of his postseason start wasn\u2019t high on the priority list.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never re-watched it,\u201d Early said. \u201cLooking back at it, I feel like I did a decent job executing pitches. Sometimes, baseball just happens. Makes me hungry for this year, of course. Just ready to get back going again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heading into the winner-take-all game Early started, the headline was that two rookie pitchers, Early and Cam Schlittler, would face off in a team that would send one of the rivals home. Though Early held his own early, it was Schlittler\u2019s night. The Walpole native dominated the Red Sox, repeatedly hitting triple digits with his fastball while striking out 12 batters in eight shutout innings in a memorable performance.<\/p>\n

All Early could do was tip his cap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had seen him in Double-A,\u201d Early said. \u201cI looked at, and was keeping up with, the Trackman throughout the game. I know he had really good stuff back in Double-A so it was not really too much of a surprise he was able to go out there and pitch really well. Obviously, he kept his composure really well.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe rode the New York crowd a good bit, which obviously helps, having a home game in a playoff run. What he did was amazing. It\u2019s cool to see another guy around the same spot \u2014 obviously, a little more big league time (14 starts) \u2014 just go out there and do his thing.”<\/p>\n

Schlittler and Early will forever be linked for their shared experience as rookies pitching in a do-or-die Red Sox-Yankees game. They haven\u2019t had a chance, however, to talk about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t personally spoken to him at all,\u201d Early said. \u201cI usually keep my circle pretty small, just the guys on my team, because those are the guys I\u2019m around all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The outspoken Schlittler caused a stir after his outing with a series of comments about the Red Sox, his hometown team. He said Boston fans \u201ccrossed a line\u201d on social media and tweeted<\/a>, \u201cDrinking dat dirty water\u201d in a clear reference to \u201cThe Standells\u201d song the Red Sox play after wins at Fenway Park. Schlittler told one Red Sox fan to \u201cstart preparing for the Bruins season\u201d after the win and made other comments that rankled Boston fans. In November, Schlittler issued a statement about the controversy on X\/Twitter<\/a>, noting that \u201canyone who knows (him) knows how highly (he speaks) of Boston and how much (he loves) the city,\u201d and adding he \u201ctruly (respects) Boston and that organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those in Red Sox camp, including manager Alex Cora, did not seem eager to respond to Schlittler.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe went to a Bruins game the other day. He\u2019s a Boston fan…,\u201d said Cora. \u201cWe have a saying back home, \u2018The one that wins celebrates.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Tolle, chuckling: \u201cYou look at where he came from, he did well in that game. It\u2019s one of those things where he wants to keep having that competitive edge, if that\u2019s what he wants to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Ranger Su\u00e1rez, Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo joining a rotation group that already included Garrett Crochet, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford and Patrick Sandoval, Early and Tolle would seem to face an uphill climb to make the Opening Day roster. They\u2019ll factor into the mix in 2026 at some point, and when they do, will certainly take some lessons they\u2019ve learned from their first taste of major league spring training.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsk questions, follow the ones you should follow \u2014 Whitlock, Chapman, Gray, Su\u00e1rez \u2014 and they understand that,\u201c Cora said. \u201dExpectations are high because they are who they are and what they did last year, but at the same time, they\u2019re still rookies and they\u2019re still learning.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 Red Sox lefties Connelly Early and Payton Tolle experienced plenty of firsts in 2025,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-131432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-the-bronx","13":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","14":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}