Red Sox's Alex Cora on Payton Tolle: ‘There’s a Reason He’s in Triple-A’

The Boston Red Sox have struggled out of the gate to kick off the 2026 Major League Baseball season and naturally that has led to questions about the club.

Boston is 2-7 on the season, the worst record in baseball. No other team has fewer than three wins. Boston has also been bitten by the injury bug a bit, with Johan Oviedo heading to the Injured List due to a right elbow strain. All in all, the Red Sox just haven't been able to get it together so far this season.

It's been a bit surprising. Boston has the 27th-ranked starter ERA at 5.19 and is tied for the third-fewest runs scored in baseball with 30. The rotation is especially surprising. Boston entered the season with one of the top rotations in baseball on paper, but it hasn't translated to wins yet. There is so much talent in the Boston rotation that there are guys down in the minors right now who would be in rotations around the league for some other teams, like Payton Tolle, for example. This past weekend, Red Sox manager Alex Cora was asked about Tolle and where he stands with the team, as seen in a clip shared to X by WEEI.

Alex Cora spoke about Payton Tolle

Feb 26, 2026; Fort Myers, Florida, USA; Boston Red Sox pitcher Payton Tolle (70) throws a pitch in the sixth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at JetBlue Park at Fenway South. Mandatory Credit: Jim Rassol-Imagn Images | Jim Rassol-Imagn Images

"There's a reason he's in Triple-A, right? He's still in his development," Cora said. "And we felt like having both of them here, Early and Tolle, didn’t make sense. We'll see what happens in the upcoming weeks, months, whatever — we do believe that he's going to contribute at one point, without making any promises. But for now, this is what we have and we feel very confident that this is a good rotation and these two guys coming back is going to help us."

Alex Cora on Payton Tolle:

“There's a reason he's in Triple-A, right? He's still in his development. And we felt like having both of them here, Early and Tolle, didn’t make sense. We'll see what happens in the upcoming weeks, months, whatever — we do believe that he's going to… pic.twitter.com/EeJbiQtK3j
— WEEI (@WEEI) April 4, 2026

Tolle has made two appearances down in the minors so far this season with Triple-A Worcester and has a 4.50 ERA in 10 innings of work. He's allowed five earned runs so far while striking out 13 batters. In Spring Training, he was lights-out for Boston with a 2.53 ERA across 10 2/3 innings of work in four appearances.

At some point, he's going to help this club in the majors but not right now. Any time there are struggles in a season, it always leads to questions about the roster decisions. Starting Tolle down in the minors wasn't the wrong call by any means. And bringing him up right now wouldn't solve the club's problems. The Red Sox are struggling from a pitching perspective and offensively. Arguably, it's worse offensively. Boston has scored just 30 runs in nine games. That's 3.33 runs per game. It doesn't matter if the Red Sox's rotation was pitching to its potential because it's hard to win games with 3.33 runs per game no matter what.

The club doesn't need to do anything hasty. The talent is there. Boston switched up the starting lineup a tad on Monday, and that's a step in the right direction. For Tolle, the Red Sox don't need to do anything yet. Give him time to develop and give the guys in the majors a few starts to get their feet under them. Everything is going to be alright, Red Sox fans.