Red Sox Fan Favorite Payton Tolle Utterly Dominates Yankees, Near No-Hitter originally appeared on NESN.
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Few players on the Boston Red Sox are more popular than 23-year-old left-handed starting pitcher Payton Tolle.
The only thing that can make you more beloved in Boston than ripping off your shirt to reveal the letters USA shaved into your chest hair is shoving seven scoreless innings against the New York Yankees at Fenway Park.
Luckily for Tolle, he has now done both.
The Yankees wasted their ace on Thursday night. Rookie Connelly Early was able to get the best of Cy Young hopeful Cam Schlittler and give the Red Sox a narrow 6-3 victory. So Tolle took the ball against the 27-year-old Will Warren on Friday night.
Tolle retired New York’s first three batters in order. He then struck out the side in the second inning.
When Anthony Volpe dug into the batter’s box at the top of the third, Tolle fanned him too, making it four strikeouts in a row.
Tolle sat down the first 15 batters of the contest with haste, carrying a perfect game into the sixth inning in front of a rocking Fenway crowd.
Volpe went down swinging once again, making it 16 retired in order. Eventually, one single Yankees batter did manage to wake up and swat a ball weakly into shallow center field. Spencer Jones’ two-strike single would be the only hit Tolle would allow.
He struck out one batter to end the sixth inning. The tired Tolle walked two batters to end the seventh, but managed to escape the inning unscathed.
Tolle’s final stat line read: 7.0 innings pitched, one hit allowed, zero runs, seven strikeouts and just two walks on 88 pitches thrown.
The rookie picked up his fourth win on the season as Boston claimed a 6-1 victory to extend the series lead to 2-0.
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