Payton Tolle Just Did Something the Red Sox Have Seen Only Eight Times
Payton Tolle, #70 Boston Red Sox Pitched an Immaculate Inning September 13, 2026
Nine pitches. Nine strikes. Three strikeouts. The Red Sox rookie opened a game at Fenway with an immaculate inning — and put his name alongside Pedro Martínez in Boston history.
There are baseball innings that take 25 pitches, a couple of walks, a mound visit and what feels like half your afternoon.
And then there was Payton Tolle at Fenway Park.
Nine pitches.
Nine strikes.
Three batters.
Three strikeouts.
That's it.
It's called an immaculate inning, and on September 13, the 23-year-old Red Sox left-hander threw one in the very first inning against the Kansas City Royals.
What Is an Immaculate Inning?
Baseball has a name for striking out all three batters in an inning on exactly nine pitches: immaculate.
No balls. No foul balls extending an at-bat beyond three pitches. No wasted pitches.
Three pitches. Strikeout.
Three pitches. Strikeout.
Three pitches. Strikeout.
Tolle struck out Nick Loftin, Bobby Witt Jr. and Jac Caglianone in order. Caglianone managed to foul off one pitch, but that was as close as Kansas City came to disrupting it.
And Tolle apparently knew exactly what was happening.
With two strikes on Caglianone and Fenway rising around him, cameras caught Tolle grinning on the mound.
Then he threw a fastball near 98 mph past Caglianone for strike nine.
Fenway erupted.
Welcome to the Pedro Club
Here's where it becomes a particularly good Boston baseball story.
This was only the eighth recorded immaculate inning in Red Sox history.
But Tolle did something even rarer.
He became the first Red Sox pitcher to throw an immaculate inning in the first inning of a game since Pedro Martínez did it at Fenway Park on May 18, 2002.
Pedro and Payton.
Not bad company for a 23-year-old.
And here's another way to appreciate just how unusual this is: the Red Sox have won nine World Series championships.
They've recorded only eight immaculate innings.
And Tolle Wasn't Finished
This wasn't simply one spectacular inning followed by an ordinary afternoon.
Tolle pitched six scoreless innings, allowing four hits and one walk while striking out seven.
Boston went on to beat Kansas City 4–1.
But years from now, nobody is going to need the box score to explain this one.
They'll need nine numbers.
9 pitches.
9 strikes.
3 strikeouts.
At Fenway Park, that was immaculate.
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