Red Sox's Payton Tolle Has Candid Reflection on March Demotion

Payton Tolle might be the single most fun player to watch on the Boston Red Sox right now, so it's easy to forget that he didn't make the team to open the season.

After debuting in the majors at the end of August last year, Tolle lost the No. 5 starter competition out of spring training to rookie teammate Connelly Early. While Early has looked strong in his first nine starts of the season, Tolle has been far more dominant in his five.

After picking up the Red Sox's only win of the weekend and throwing eight strong innings for the first time in his major league career, Tolle sure looks like he's in the rotation to stay. As it turns out, that brief demotion to Triple-A might have been the best thing that could have happened to him.

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Tolle's trip to Triple-A was blessing in disguise?

After taking the first four weeks of the season to fine-tune his arsenal, which is led by an explosive fastball but lacked effective secondary pitches last season, Tolle said this weekend that he believes he had the proper amount of time to recalibrate before returning to the majors.

“You want to play baseball at the highest level, no matter what, so, yes, it was disappointing,” Tolle told MLB.com's Ian Browne. “But I was also very aware of, like, ‘This is a good thing. This is what I needed. I don’t need the trial by fire just yet. Go to Worcester, work on what we need to work on.’

"Threw more offspeed pitches there the first four games that I pitched than I had in the games up here. Just having that time to work on things, get comfortable with it helped out.”

With a 2.05 ERA, 0.78 WHIP, and 30 strikeouts in 30 2/3 innings, Tolle has looked like the future ace the Red Sox were dreaming on as they aggressively promoted him from High-A at the start of last yea to the majors.

Everything this 23-year-old says shows that he's got the right mindset about his path to stardom, too.

It's easy to get carried away after five good starts, but it truly feels as though Tolle has turned the corner for good, and will keep his spot in the rotation locked down as long as he stays healthy.

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