“Be a Tigger, not an Eeyore.”
Growing up, Payton Tolle heard this advice from his mother, Jina, constantly. She never hid the truth about his bad game. She didn’t just pat him on the back and tell him it was okay. Instead, she made him face his mistakes, fix them, and stay positive.
“There was no sugarcoating. The reactions you always got were real from her. It was never, ‘Oh, you guys will get them next time.’ No, it was, ‘You could not throw the ball in the zone today — so go get better at it,’” Tolle shared, per the Globe. “That development mindset absolutely comes from her and my dad, too. They both were big with, ‘In order to get better, you have to know that you did bad — plain and simple.’ Own that, and then, ‘OK, now what do I do to move forward with it?’”
Tolle needs that mindset this weekend. The 23-year-old rookie was supposed to pitch for the Boston Red Sox on Saturday. It had been exactly two years since his mom died. A rainout pushed his start against the Tampa Bay Rays to Sunday. Still, it is a very emotional weekend for him.
“I was telling my fiancée, I knew that it was going to be at some point. I was going to have a major-league game on that day,” Tolle told the Globe. “It just happened to be [now]. I’m not going to shut myself off from what it is like.”
He took her advice to heart. Tolle is having an impressive season so far for the Red Sox. Across three starts, the lefty has logged a 2.04 ERA, 17.2 innings with a 0.74 WHIP. During his latest start against the Detroit Tigers, Tolle went 7 innings deep, a season high so far. He gave up 2 runs, walking one and striking out 8 as Boston swept the Tigers. Tolle will take the mound as the Rays and the Red Sox face off after going 1-1 during the four-game set.
Sunday would be a huge game for the team and for Tolle personally.
Tolle had taken those lessons to the heart. He has overcome the consistency issues he dealt with last season, improving significantly from a 6.06 ERA. His BABIP has also dropped to .167 in 2026 from last year’s .310. But unfortunately, Tolle’s beloved mother did not get the opportunity to witness her son’s journey to the MLB. She passed just two months before the Red Sox drafted him in 2024.
Jina Tolle was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in 2016. She fought through 125 rounds of chemotherapy in 8 years before she tragically succumbed to the disease at just 48 years old. According to Tolle, she had influenced her son’s baseball career profoundly despite the disease. She helped Payton display the joy he got from playing, which is evident from his roars and double-fist pumps.
“More than anybody could ever imagine. The joy that she had, I try to keep with me, especially when it comes to baseball,” Tolle observed. “She always said, ‘Show people why you play, who you play for, and why you love it.’ I just have so much joy playing this game. She helped me know it’s OK to show that.”
‘Show people why you play’: Payton Tolle keeps his late mother’s memory close as he takes the mound https://t.co/i9nmP9Sj7r
— Boston Globe Sports (@BGlobeSports) May 9, 2026
Jina had once feared that her sons would forget her once she passed. But they could never. Payton revealed that despite her passing, he sends a text to his late mother before taking the mound. After the anthem, he looks up at the sky and makes an ‘I love you’ hand gesture, remembering his mother every game.
“I’m going to tell every single person I can about you. Nobody will ever forget an interaction with Jina Tolle. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about her,” Payton professed.
Jine Tolle not only influenced her son’s personal growth, but she also contributed significantly to his career.
Jine Tolle’s impact on Payton’s drafting
Chris Reilly, area scout for the Red Sox at the time, advocated for Payton Tolle’s drafting by the Red Sox. Standing at 6-foot-6-inch, the 23-year-old was the organization’s No.50 pick. A two-way player at Wichita State, Tolle had focused solely on pitching at TCU at the time of his drafting.
The Red Sox loved his fastball. While it sat around 91 mph at TCU, it touched 96 mph and gave college hitters fits. Furthermore, he displayed a 37% strikeout rate and an elite 7½ feet extension of the ball. Tolle’s fastball also exhibited an unusual angle due to his low release point. However, Tolle came on Reilly’s radar owing to his friendship with Jine Tolle.
In 2019, when Reilly was scouting for the Athletics, he met Jina Tolle during a showcase event for the top high school talents in Oklahoma. Reilly was moved by Jina’s cancer battle and maintained a close friendship over the years, even after he moved out.
“The ability to sit down in a game and just meet somebody that’s different than everybody else — more pleasant, more effervescent, more refreshing — as a scout, that’s so unique,” Reilly recounted Jina’s influence on him, per the Globe.
At the time, Reilly was impressed by Payton’s skills. He noted, “I was like, ‘Well, this kid’s completely different.”
When Tolle displayed an incredible performance at TCU in 2024, Reilly advocated for him to the Red Sox.
“That was a separator. I was getting emotional talking about the player in our scout meetings, talking about his family and his makeup,” Reilly reportedly stated. “I think the Red Sox took the opportunity to listen a little bit closer, trust a little bit more, knowing that in my four years with the Red Sox I never gave an evaluation of somebody’s makeup or background like I did [with Tolle].”
The organization showed faith in Reilly’s judgment and drafted Payton. According to Tolle, his mother “planted the seeds” for his pro career. Though his mother did not live to see the day, Tolle would make sure to live up to her expectations for him.
For now, Tolle can solely focus on remembering his mother as the Red Sox-Rays Saturday matchup got postponed due to rain. Tolle would take the mound on Sunday, instead.
