WooSox notebook: Breaking down the good and the bad of Payton Tolle’s 2026 debut
The line on Tolle's season debut may have been ugly, but there were positives to take away from the outing, too.
Much like with his WooSox debut in 2025 (in which he allowed six runs in the first inning, but settled in to scatter three hits over his next four innings), there was still a lot of good in a start that resulted in an ugly stat line. Tolle brought the heat in the first inning of his season debut against the Syracuse Mets on Sunday, getting leadoff man Nick Morabito to strike out swinging on a 97 mph fastball. He finished off Ryan Clifford with another heater, catching him looking on strike three, and then got Ronny Mauricio to ground out weakly on a cutter.
He needed just 10 pitches to get through the first inning. Payton Tolle smiles during his first start of 2026 on March 29, 2026 at Polar Park. Katie Morrison-O'Day Trouble started in the second as he walked the leadoff man in Jose Rojas before giving up a single and then a two-run double.
He cranked the velocity up to 98 to get a swinging strikeout to escape the inning without any more damage. A leadoff walk was bad news yet again for Tolle in the third, as a walk, single and double steal put runners on second and third, and an error in the outfield let in a run. But a pair of sharp singles plated another three runs and suddenly the WooSox and Tolle were looking at a 6-0 deficit.
Even after a rocky third, Tolle went out for the fourth and finished his outing on a strong note. He forced the number nine hitter Yonny Hernandez to pop out weakly before running into a 3-0 count on Morabito. Tolle came back and attacked Morabito, getting him to pop out in foul territory on the sixth pitch of the at-bat.
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