Eli White Is Awesome!

For the second game in a row, the Red Sox lineup lacked a lot of name value, but just like Saturday, this group of Sox did just enough to support an outstanding pitching performance.

After watching Jake Bennett, Ranger Suárez, and Sonny Gray drop six-plus excellent innings each on the Orioles, Payton Tolle took the mantle and ran with it on Sunday. He came out of the gate pumping strikes and didn’t stop until his outing was complete six innings later.

In the bottom of the first, he struck out both Blaze Alexander and Pete Alonso on a total of eight pitches and looked like he was going to K the side once he got ahead of Coby Mayo 1-2. But the curveball that he used to K Alonso didn’t have as much bite this time and remained up in the zone. The Orioles’ lefty killer pounded it over Duran’s head in left for a two-out double.

Christian Encarnacion-Strand was next, and he had already shown that he was very capable of turning around a power fastball when he took Chapman deep in the ninth inning of Game One. This time, he took an 0-2 cutter to left for a ground-rule double and gave Baltimore a shocking 1-0 lead.

From that moment on, it would be all Tolle, all the time.

He would face the minimum in each of the next four innings. He allowed only two singles the rest of his outing, and neither of those runners moved past first base. Payton was a strike-throwing machine, with 70 of the 91 pitches he delivered going for strikes. In total, he punched out a dozen Orioles and even took a moment to do a push-up on the mound just to stay in shape.

Although the Red Sox offense lacked punch,…