​CHICAGO — Since last Wednesday, Payton Tolle had been dwelling on his previous outing, a three-inning stint in which he surrendered a season-high six earned runs on seven hits. The Red Sox left-hander let those thoughts swirl on the flight to Anaheim that night, and with two off-days bookending the series with the Angels, he had plenty of time to reflect. Yet it seems that time was put to productive use. Tuesday offered him the chance to wash away that memory.
“I had a recalibration, a reset,” Tolle said after six innings of one-run ball against the Chicago White Sox in the Red Sox’ 8-1 victory at Rate Field. “I needed it a little bit. It was good. The last outing, I was out of character, is probably the best way to put it. I was kind of getting nitpicky and not really flying through the zone. I thought we did a better job of that in this game. I was able to press the right buttons and come back out here and compete.
Those rough starts are bound to happen. But you learn and move on to the next one. We needed it. So we learned a lot about ourselves.”
Even though his line looked clean, Tolle did wrestle with command in the first two frames, lingering in counts and laboring at times. After yielding an infield single to start the second, he found his rhythm, retiring 15 of the final 16 batters faced.
Crucially, after issuing a walk to the first hitter of the night, he did not issue another free pass the rest of the way and punched out six. The two hits he allowed were both singles.
“I felt like me and (Connor Wong) were in sync,” Tolle said. “We were able to flood the zone and get ahead of hitters more in the later innings. Sometimes with Wonger, you just sit back and he starts pressing the buttons and it’s like, ‘Okay, let’s go.’”
Thanks to longer at-bats in the first inning that pushed up his pitch count, Tolle reached 92 pitches after six innings. But he had already done his job.
“It’s just baseball, man,” Willson Contreras said regarding Tolle’s rough day on the homestand’s end. “When a starting pitcher is off in a game, that doesn’t mean he’ll carry it to the next start. Tolle has immense talent. He’s a future ace, for sure. That’s what I see in him. What I appreciate most is how he maintains his composure on the mound and controls his tempo. The sky’s the limit with that guy.”
Addendum: For Wednesday’s crossover, the Red Sox’ moneyline against the White Sox sat at -102 on FanDuel. A thorough FanDuel Sportsbook review is available for those interested in navigating their app. This recap originally appeared on MassLive.