BOSTON (AP) — Red Sox left-hander Payton Tolle woke up Friday morning feeling under the weather. Then he went out and made the New York Yankees’ hitters look weak.
In the best start of his young career, the 23-year-old Tolle retired his first 16 batters, taking a perfect game into the sixth inning, and gave up just one hit over seven scoreless in over its longtime rivals.
“Yeah, just got it this morning, a little bit yesterday, body aches, fever,” he said after his 88-pitch gem. “I laid in bed for a long time this morning. Got here and got some DayQuil in me.”
He was determined to make his start.
“I woke up this morning and said ‘I don’t feel great, but I’m going to pitch today,”’ he said. “There were a couple of times where I was like ‘Do I tell anybody? Or should I push through this?’’’
Tolle (4-5) gave up a one-out line single to left in the sixth by Spencer Jones, ending his perfect game and no-hit bid. He left after the seventh to a standing ovation.
Did the no-hitter ever cross his mind?
“Way too early,” he said laughing ,before saying it was probably like the third inning.
“Whenever those guys that throw a no-hitter or a perfect game say: ‘I didn’t think about it until the end of the game, all right, dude you thought about it at least once,’’’ he said, breaking into a laugh. “You looked at the scoreboard at one point.”
Tolle mostly used a sharp curveball combined with an upper 90s – but a bit below his usual velocity — fastball to overpower the Yankees. He struck out seven and walked two.
“I’m definitely trying to get to spots better because you can’t just blow guys away,” he said of his velocity drop. “I really took a one inning at a time approach.”
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