After a pair of defiant wins in their first two games since the sudden firing of manager Alex Cora and the bulk of the coaching staff, the Boston Red Sox came back to earth Tuesday night.

They looked more like the team they’ve been for much of this first month of the season: a shorter-than-ideal outing from their starting pitcher, too many walks issued by the pitching staff and very little in the way of offensive production.

Thus the end result was like so many others this year: a quiet Red Sox loss, 3-0 to the hosting Toronto Blue Jays.

In 2025 the Red Sox were the last team in baseball to be shut out, in their 60th game of the season (May 31 at Atlanta). Tuesday was Game No. 30, and already their third shutout loss. It came after their first three-game win streak of the season, a span in which they tallied 27 runs, including 17 in Cora’s final game.

Rookie left-hander Payton Tolle, making his second big-league start of the year after beginning the year in Triple-A Worcester, tired earlier than in his season debut against the New York Yankees last week. He tossed 68 pitches over 4 2/3 innings, with three earned runs allowed on three hits, four walks and four strikeouts.

“He threw the ball pretty well,” Tracy told reporters postgame, explaining that he and pitching coach Andrew Bailey had discussed a shorter start for the rookie since he hadn’t been on a traditional five-day schedule.

Tolle weaved in and out of traffic from the start: a one-out walk to Ernie Clement in the bottom of the first, a two-out walk to Davis Schneider in the second.

The Blue Jays got on the board in the third, when Andres Gimenez led off with a single and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. put them both in scoring position with a two-out double.

Roman Anthony’s best throw of the year caught Kazuma Okamoto out advancing to second, but not before the newcomer from Japan’s Nippon league drove in both runners with a single. Toronto unsuccessfully challenged the ruling that Marcelo Mayer had applied the tag in time, but had a 2-0 lead as a consolation prize.

It marked the 14th time an opponent has scored first against the Red Sox this season. They are 1-13 in such games.

“It was a grind,” Tolle told reporters. “Just didn’t feel (like) myself, really. Thought I was pressing a little too hard on myself.

“Even Connelly (Early) came in here and said, ‘Hey, looks like you’re just beating yourself up.’ So definitely feel like I got in my own way today.”

Tolle got through each inning on 16 or fewer pitches, but his pitch mix was somewhat unusual, and his velocity was down on all five types, including by at least 2.2 mph on his four-seam, sinker, and cutter, his three most-used pitches. After he issued back-to-back two-out walks to Myles Straw and Clement, Tracy turned to right-hander Zack Kelly.

“The velo was a little down for most of the game anyhow, it started to go a little lower, it looked like he was fatiguing, so went ahead and made the move,” Tracy said of the decision to pull Tolle despite the relatively-low pitch count.

“It was down, but instead of just taking it for what it was, I kind of got in my own way about it, started trying too hard on some pitches,” Tolle said of his velocity. “I thought I was trying to make them gross, and like, I just needed to go out there and keep doing what I can with what I got that day. So something to learn from, for sure.”

Kelly allowed an inherited run to score, on a Guerrero RBI single, before finishing the inning. Toronto only managed three more baserunners against him, Tyler Samaniego and Ryan Watson, but by then they had the win all but locked up; Guerrero’s RBI single had pushed Toronto’s win probability to 88%.

The Boston bats had early opportunities against Blue Jays rising star Trey Yesavage in his season debut after a stint on the injured list, but he settled in after they failed to capitalize. No. 2 hitter Willson Contreras doubled in his first at-bat and advanced no further than third, as Yesavage retired Anthony and Wilyer Abreu to end the top of the first. Trevor Story led off the second with a single, and advanced to third on Marcelo Mayer’s two-out single before Yesavage got Caleb Durbin to fly out to end the inning.

After the second inning, the Red Sox didn’t have another runner in scoring position. Beginning with Durbin, Yesavage retired 11 of his last 12 batters; Masataka Yoshida’s two-out single in the fourth was the exception.

Yesavage exited after striking out Contreras to begin the top of the sixth, his third and final punchout of the night. The Red Sox managed just four hits against him, and drew nary a walk. Like Tolle, Yesavage’s pitch count was fairly low; he threw 74 pitches, 50 for strikes.

Against the Blue Jays bullpen, Boston went in order. They entered the contest with the third-most 1-2-3 offensive innings in baseball, and added five to their season total. It was their seventh game with no more than four hits, tied for the most in the majors.

The Red Sox are 12-18.

The series in Toronto wraps up Wednesday at 3:07 p.m. ET. Right-hander Brayan Bello, who’s sporting a 9.00 ERA over his first five starts of the year, will attempt to right the ship and lead Boston to its second consecutive series victory over a division rival.

Facts and figures

The Red Sox are 1-17 when their starting pitchers don’t complete six innings.

Tuesday snapped a streak of five consecutive games with a Red Sox home run, their longest streak since a nine-game stretch last August 25-Sept. 2.

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