Red Sox rookie pitcher Payton Tolle had himself quite the breakout season in 2026. Our series continues with the left-hander.

Guardians pitcher Parker Messick wasn’t the only notable left-handed rookie hurler to blossom and excel in 2026. So did Payton Tolle, although his rise certainly wasn’t similar at all to what Messick did. In fact, Tolle’s 2026 campaign didn’t even start in Boston.

A (sort-of) late start

It’s hard to believe this in hindsight but Payton Tolle didn’t even make the Red Sox’s roster out of camp.

Tolle, who made his MLB debut late in 2026, was optioned to Triple-A Worcester in late March. At the time, the Red Sox had a full rotation, with Garrett Crochet, Sonny Gray, Ranger Suarez, Brayan Bello, and fellow rookie Connelly Early being a part of that early rotation.

But in late April, after three outings in Triple-A, Tolle was back in the Majors. And he never returned from that point forward.

The rookie Red Sox pitcher struck out 171 over 148.2 IP, with his 10.4 K/9 ranking among the top 20 in the Majors. It was also very difficult to square Tolle (as we’ll get to in a second) up, as he ranked among the top 40 among starting pitchers in HR/9 (.91).

That blowaway fastball

During Tolle’s collegiate career, the rap on him was simple: the fastball was an elite pitch. It was just a matter of whether the secondary stuff would take a step forward, especially since he ditched being a two-way player altogether once he joined TCU in 2024.

It did. But before getting into that, the fastball in and of itself was an outstanding offering. A Whiff of 30.5% in the regular season, and a pitch that netted swing-and-miss, particularly towards Tolle’s arm side.

There’s a lot to his four-seam fastball. One, it’s just a very difficult pitch to pick up with his delivery and angle. It’s not a running fastball, although that can certainly be said of the sinker that saw a lot of use (again, more on that later) in 2026, too. But as seen down below, the arm side was free real estate.

His success with the fastballs, both of which were hard and flirted with triple digits, opened up the door to beat opposing hitters with the secondary stuff. Tolle used three different pitches aside from the sinker and four-seamer: a curveball, cutter, and changeup.

The curveball was the big swing-and-miss pitch for Tolle. A low-80s, slurvish curveball that was a hook against opposing hitters, albeit one that was not used as often as one might think.

Much like other big fastball pitchers nowadays (think Jacob Misiorowski, Cam Schlittler), Tolle heavily used his two heaters a significant amount. As much as over 70% in April (a small sample size), and roughly the same in September. Combine that with the cutter, another pitch that helped him set up his own four-seamer, and that number rose even higher.

But those pitches, in particular his four-seamer, helped set up the curve.

Out of the 46 total whiffs of the curve, 25 came off a four-seam fastball that directly preceded it.

Expanding the zone

Among starting pitchers, Payton Tolle was the king of chase in the second half.

You could have probably guessed that, to a certain extent, based on how well his fastball played outside the zone. But to put numbers on it, Tolle’s Chase% during the second half was 39.9%, which wound up being the highest among all starting pitchers (min. 150 induced swings).

Among both relievers and starters, Tolle ranked sixth in the Majors.

Looking ahead

One would like to think that the Red Sox rotation could be better in 2027, especially if Garrett Crochet is healthy after he missed almost all of the 2026 regular season.

If Crochet, Tolle, and Suarez, plus Jake Bennett and whomever is in that Red Sox rotation behind those four four stay healthy, the Sox should be a highly competitive club yet again. It will also be interesting to see if Tolle makes further adjustments.

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