Payton Tolle gets the ball in Mariners vs Red Sox on Father’s Day after opening the season’s family thread with an emotional Mother’s Day start. The Red Sox are trying to sweep the Mariners in Seattle, and Tolle is carrying that spotlight again. He also arrives with a simple complication: he has lost his last two starts.
Tolle and Chad
Tolle said his father, Chad, has been part of the climb from the beginning. “My first time pitching in Triple-A, he was there, and then obviously with the (major league) debut, he was there, too,” Tolle said. “Like if he could find a flight, and I called him right now, he would be here tonight. He’s always ready to be there for me.”
That same bond showed up in a more ordinary way before. Chad once drove five hours from the family home in Oklahoma to Kansas City so he could spend 15 minutes with his son, and Tolle called it “pretty special.”
Mother’s Day and Jina
The Father’s Day start follows another personal moment. On Mother’s Day, Tolle honored his late mother, Jina, who died two years prior at age 48 due to cancer.
He described that period as painful for the family. “It was definitely a really hard experience for all of us,” Tolle said. “We were all going through it together. It was difficult, but we had each other.”
That history gives the start extra weight without changing the baseball task in front of him. Tolle is listed as the Red Sox starter with a 3-4 record and a 2.93 ERA, while Logan Gilbert is set for the Mariners with a 5-4 record and a 3.43 ERA.
Logan Gilbert and the Mariners
Gilbert has handled Boston before. He is 0-2 with a 4.81 ERA in six career starts against the Red Sox, and Seattle is 10-13 in games started by lefties. Of the five right-handed hitters Seattle started Saturday, only Julio Rodriguez had a batting average better than.189.
Tolle has not faced any Seattle batters, so the matchup starts without a long recent history between the pitcher and this lineup. The Red Sox listed Anthony Seigler, Ceddanne Rafaela, Gasper, Willson Contreras, Jarren Duran, Caleb Durbin, Marcelo Mayer, Connor Wong and Nate Eaton behind him.
The Red Sox have already used Ranger Suarez and Connelly Early in the first two games of the series. That leaves Tolle in position to finish the job in Seattle and leave the family storyline attached to a sweep, not just a start.
