As Major League Baseball honored Mother’s Day with tributes and pink-themed gear to raise breast cancer awareness, Red Sox starter Payton Tolle faced an especially poignant challenge. Saturday marked the second anniversary of his mother Jina’s passing after a prolonged battle with colon cancer; she was 48 years old.
Originally scheduled to start against the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday, the game was postponed due to rain and rescheduled as part of a doubleheader on July 17. That pushed Tolle’s start to Mother’s Day. For the 23-year-old, baseball offered a measure of solace on an otherwise difficult day.
“This weekend is really tough for me, I’m not going to lie to you,” Tolle said, pausing to compose himself after the 4-1 loss to the Rays. “I think yesterday would have been just as hard… I try to get away from it as much as I can, but at the same time, it’s life. Some things are bigger than baseball. That’s where I try to detach and just pitch. It’s tough, but I have to figure out how to play with it anyway.”
Jina Tolle never saw her son pitch in the majors, passing away two months before the Red Sox selected him in the second round of the 2024 draft. In her honor, Tolle has the phrase “You’re so pretty” stitched on his glove, a nod to his fun-loving personality. The saying originated from his mother shouting it from the stands to tease him during his days at Texas Christian University.
On Sunday, Tolle took the mound to the song “Mother” by Danzig, a tribute he had been saving. “There’s a little joke with my dad about that song—I’ve had it in the back pocket for a long time,” he said. “It’s a pretty good walk-out song, but it’s Mother’s Day, so you gotta go with it.”
During the game, Tolle allowed a solo home run to Junior Caminero but was let down by his defense. Shortstop Trevor Story committed an error in the third inning, leading to two more runs. After a 28-pitch third frame, Tolle rebounded to face the minimum six batters over the next two innings. He finished with three runs (all earned) on seven hits over five innings, striking out four on an emotional day.
When asked what his mother would have said about his outing, Tolle cracked a smile: “Suck it up and do better.”
Interim manager Chad Tracy, who worked with Tolle in Triple A last season and earlier this year, expressed empathy. “I thought about him a lot last night with all the ‘Happy Mother’s Days’ going around,” Tracy said. “When you put yourself in his shoes, he’s probably thinking about that. I’d say this is pretty meaningful to him for sure.”
**Trevor Story’s Costly Error**
The Red Sox have quietly played strong defense over the past month, entering Saturday with only four errors in their last 23 games. They lead the majors in Defensive Runs Saved (32), thanks largely to Wilyer Abreu (7), Caleb Durbin (6), and Willson Contreras (4). No other American League team has more than 14 DRS.
But on Sunday, Story’s error proved pivotal.
With the Rays leading 1-0, Tolle gave up a single, and a sacrifice bunt moved the runner to second. Speedy Chandler Simpson then hit a grounder to shortstop that went right under Story’s glove, allowing a run to score. “I knew the runner was going to third, and I thought for a split second I should get him out,” Story said.
