Payton Tolle carries perfect bid into sixth inning as Red Sox beat Yankees, 6-1

Mac Cerullo, Boston Herald on Jun 26, 2026

Published in Baseball

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BOSTON — It’s been more than 124 years since Cy Young pitched the first and only perfect game in Red Sox history, but for a while on Friday it looked like Payton Tolle might have a chance to etch his name into franchise lore.

It wasn’t meant to be, but Friday was still a night the Red Sox rookie will always remember.

Tolle was sensational in Friday’s 6-1 win over the Yankees, retiring the first 16 batters he faced to carry a perfect game into the sixth inning. Spencer Jones broke up Tolle’s bid for history with a one-out single, but the left-hander bounced back and finished with just one hit and two walks allowed over seven shutout innings.

He became the first Red Sox pitcher to throw seven scoreless with one or fewer hit allowed in an outing since Ranger Suarez did so over eight innings on April 27. At age 23, he’s the youngest Red Sox pitcher to do so since Eduardo Rodriguez on Sept. 16, 2016.

Tolle was masterful from the opening pitch.

The Red Sox rookie sent the Yankees down 1-2-3 on nine pitches in the top of the first and came within one pitch of an immaculate inning in the second, striking out Jasson Dominguez, Jose Caballero and Jazz Chisholm Jr. on a combined 10 pitches.

The left-hander kept mowing the Yankees down from there, needing 10 pitches to complete the third, 17 for the fourth and only five pitches for the fifth, by which point he’d retired all 15 batters he’d faced on only 51 pitches.

Tolle got plenty of help from his offense too.

The Red Sox struck first with a pair of two-out hits to take an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Wilyer Abreu crushed a triple off the center field wall and Willson Contreras brought him home with an RBI single.

Then in the second the Red Sox repeatedly put the ball in play against a Yankees defense that has struggled recently, and good things continued to happen. The club loaded the bases with no outs on a bunt single, a single and a walk, and shortstop Tsung-Che Cheng — who was called up hours before first pitch after Marcelo Mayer was placed on the injured list — beat out a potential double-play ball to record his first career RBI.

Mickey Gasper followed by beating out a potential inning-ending double play ball of his own, driving in another run to make it 3-0 Red Sox in the second.

Finally in the third, Contreras bucked the soft-contact trend and lowered the boom, obliterating a 1-2 sweeper 418 feet clear over the Green Monster for a solo home run to make it 4-0. It was the 17th home run of the season for Contreras, who is currently on pace for a career-high 34 homers.

Contreras was later involved in a fracas following his walk in the fifth inning. Upon reaching first base he and Yankees starter Will Warren started jawing at each other, prompting both dugouts and bullpens to empty before cooler heads prevailed and the field was cleared without further incident.

Though the extracurriculars didn’t seem to throw Tolle off his game — he struck out Anthony Volpe to lead off the sixth — his bid for a perfect game still came to an end when Jones hit a bloop single into left field for New York’s first hit of the game.

Even though history wasn’t going to be made Friday, the Fenway Park faithful still gave Tolle a standing ovation in appreciation following the hit.

Boston extended its lead to 5-0 on a Connor Wong sacrifice fly in the bottom of the sixth, and in the seventh Tolle finally started running out of steam when he issued back-to-back two-out walks. Those prompted a pair of mound visits from catcher Connor Wong and pitching coach Andrew Bailey, but Tolle finished strong by forcing a flyout to center from Chisholm to end his day.

Tolle finished with seven strikeouts in the longest scoreless outing of his career, and the Red Sox bullpen took care of business from there. New York scored in the eighth off Tommy Kahnle on an RBI groundout by Austin Wells, but that’s as close as the Yankees could get.

Wong rounded out the scoring for Boston with a two-out RBI single in the bottom of the eighth.

Friday wound up being a memorable Red Sox debut for Cheng, a member of Chinese Taipei’s World Baseball Classic team who had spent the first half in Triple-A Worcester before his call-up. Cheng previously went hitless in three career MLB games with the Pirates last season, but Friday he went 1 for 3 with a walk, an RBI and a double for his first big league hit in the bottom of the fourth.

With two straight wins the Red Sox (34-46) have clinched no worse than a series split. They will go for the win Saturday with Jake Bennett (1-3, 3.71) scheduled to square off against Yankees ace Gerrit Cole (2-2, 3.62), who is making his first start at Fenway Park since Sept. 13, 2022. First pitch is slated for 1:10 p.m.