Sometimes the universe — and especially the baseball universe — just lines things up in beautiful, unexpected ways you couldn’t engineer. Today, Payton Tolle is starting on Mother’s Day because the most powerful mother of all — Mother Nature — decided the Red Sox and Rays weren’t going to play their game yesterday when Tolle was originally schedule to pitch.
Now, instead of pitching on the two year anniversary of his mother’s death, he’ll throw on the best day possible to celebrate her life. Tolle’s mother was an enormous inspiration to his baseball career, as Alex Speier detailed in his column today, and now in the first Mother’s Day since his big league debut, he’ll be the main character of the show.
As far as the baseball goes, this is a chance to back up his seven shutout innings last time out against the Tigers on Monday. If he does something spectacular again, it will also be on top of Connelly Early’s seven shutout innings on Friday, and given the Red Sox still haven’t seen the Garrett Crochet, Sonny Gray and Ranger Suarez part of the rotation click together yet, we actually may be on the verge of unlocking an incredibly special rotation over the summer month of those guys get healthy and Early and Tolle keep growing into rotation regulars.
On the flip side of the “is it real?” starting pitching questions, the Rays are sending 35-year-old Nick Martinez to the mound. For most of his career, Martinez has been the very definition of mediocrity, bouncing back and forth between bullpen and starting rolls as well as MLB roles and time in the Japanese League. However, even since putting on a Rays uniform this year he’s been borderline unhittable, allowing two runs or fewer in all seven of his starts this season. He now leads the team with the best record in the American League in WAR.
Lineup wise, it’s mostly what we’ve been seeing since Roman Anthony went on the IL but with one key change. Mickey Gasper, the guy who replaced Anthony on the roster gets the start at catcher.
I actually really like using Gasper here. With the rainout yesterday and the off day tomorrow, it’s the rare opportunity to give both Narvaez and Wong three straight days off by sitting them for just one game. (And it can really be four days off if you start Wong on Tuesday since Narvaez started on Friday.) That stuff matters in the marathon.
⚾️ First Pitch: 1:35pm — Fenway Park, Boston MA
📺 TV: NESN
📻 Radio: WEEI