The Red Sox rotation was projected to be one of the best units in baseball entering the season.
With a collection of current or former aces, viable mid-rotation starters and promising young arms, Boston’s starting pitchers were projected as one of the top rotations in baseball by plenty of outlets. Between injuries and underperformance, however, Red Sox starters have been closer to the middle of the pack, rather than near the top.
While newcomers Ranger Suarez and Sonny Gray have been good in their own right, they haven’t been the best Red Sox starters. Nor has it been 2025 AL Cy Young Award runner-up Garrett Crochet, who struggled before landing on the injured list this year. The title for best Boston starter so far belongs to left-hander Payton Tolle.
The 23-year-old rookie began the season with Triple-A Worcester, but due to the aforementioned injuries and performance, Tolle made his 2026 debut on April 23. He struck out 11 Yankees hitters in six innings of one-run ball in that debut and hasn’t looked back since. The lefty, who gets the ball tonight against Baltimore, has a 2.61 ERA and 46 strikeouts in 41 1/3 innings across his first seven starts.
"Tolle made every argument possible back in spring training to break camp, and I think that with every start he makes, he just continues to stake his claim that he should have been," Crochet told MLB.com's Ian Browne. "It really just kind of spoke to the nature of the depth that we had when we left camp."
That Tolle has excelled perhaps isn’t all that surprising -- he was Boston’s top prospect per MLB Pipeline entering the season and the 19th overall prospect in baseball. Selected 50th overall in the 2024 Draft by the Red Sox out of TCU, Tolle quickly emerged as one of the most dominant left-handers in the Minors, leading to him debuting for seven appearances late last season.
After getting his feet wet in the Minors, Tolle has taken his game to another level this season. By one specific measure, Tolle ranks as one of the best starters in baseball. According to Statcast’s expected ERA -- which measures a pitcher’s quantity and quality of contact -- Tolle’s 2.20 xERA only trails the 2.18 mark by the dominant Jacob Misiorowski among pitchers with at least 40 innings.
How exactly is this 6-foot-6 mustachioed left-hander dominating in the Majors fewer than two years after he was drafted? A huge part of Tolle’s meteoric rise through the Red Sox system was his velocity taking on newfound life upon being drafted. Tolle dominated with a 90-92 mph fastball in college in part due to his elite extension, but that velocity has increased significantly with Boston. His average four-seamer is sitting at 96.3 mph this season, which plays up even more due to his elite extension (7.4 feet, 98th percentile).
But Tolle’s fastball excellence goes beyond just the four-seamer. Since joining the Red Sox, the left-hander has added a sinker and a cutter. Tolle added the cutter last season and threw it 13.8 percent of the time in the Majors. The lefty introduced the sinker this season to give hitters a different look and a distinct three-fastball mix.
After throwing his four-seamer 64.1 percent of the time during his debut season, Tolle has spread the fastball usage around with his three heaters: 46.9 percent four-seamers, 24.8 percent sinkers and 15.3 percent cutters in 2026.
The multiple fastball approach, which has become increasingly popular across the sport in the last few years, has many obvious champions. Paul Skenes has a plethora of dominant pitches, including a four-seamer and sinker. Seattle’s Bryan Woo mostly relies on those two pitches.
But the clearest comps for Tolle are his teammate Crochet, who rose to dominance by mainly relying on a high-velocity four-seamer, sinker and cutter. It’s been a similar story for the Yankees’ Cam Schlittler, who has used those three pitches more than 90 percent of the time this year and is on track to potentially win a Cy Young Award.
Like Tolle, those two pitchers are also 6-foot-6 and boast an elite extension down the mound. That makes the three fastballs’ velocities play up even more, which is a tall task for opposing hitters trying to differentiate if they’re about to see a straight-and-true four-seamer or a sinker or cutter going in opposite directions.
Much of Tolle’s dominance stems from him being an overpowering lefty blowing fastballs by hitters, but his improvements go beyond that. While Tolle had average-ish command in college, he’s really improved in that regard to throw strikes and limit walks at an above-average clip in the Majors.
After walking 10.8 percent of hitters in his brief stint in the Majors last year, that figure is down to 6.8 percent this season, not too dissimilar from the 6.3 percent mark he had across the Minors in 2025. When you’re nearly punching out 30 percent of the hitters you’re facing (Tolle is at 28.6 percent), that small of a walk rate makes you a tough matchup.
Just for reference, here are the pitchers with a strikeout rate of at least 28 percent and a walk rate no higher than 7.0 percent in at least 40 innings (entering Tuesday's games):
Jacob Misiorowski: 39.6 K%, 7.0 BB%
Chris Sale: 30.2 K%, 6.4 BB%
Kyle Harrison: 29.6 K%, 6.8 BB%
Cam Schlittler: 29.5 K%, 4.7 BB%
Jacob deGrom: 30.1 K%, 5.0 BB%
Cristopher Sánchez: 29.4 K%, 5.0 BB%
Paul Skenes: 29.4 K%, 4.7 BB%
Payton Tolle: 28.6 K%, 6.8 BB%
Joe Ryan: 28.0 K%, 5.0 BB%
Tolle misses bats, limits free passes and also generates weak contact, a trifecta for pitching success. Opposing hitters have only barreled 5.8 percent of Tolle’s batted balls, which ranks in the 72nd percentile. Only 36.9 percent of his batted balls are classified as hard-hit, placing him in the 61st percentile.
Despite being a heavy flyball pitcher -- his 66.0 percent airball rate (flyballs, line drives and pop-ups) is 12th-highest among pitchers with 100 batted balls -- a lot of those batted balls are weakly hit.
Put all of these elements together and Tolle is one of the clear-cut bright spots on Boston’s roster and a burgeoning young star in the Majors.