BOSTON — With his 93rd pitch of the night, Payton Tolle struck out Giancarlo Stanton for the third straight time. He pumped his fist in triumph as he walked off the mound in the sixth inning, leaving his first big league start of the year with a lead.

Then the Boston Red Sox let it all unravel. Again.

The New York Yankees tagged relievers Danny Coulombe and Greg Weissert for three runs in the seventh en route to a 4-2 victory and a gutting series sweep.

The Red Sox recorded just three runs and 13 hits across the three games.

It wasted a brilliant 11-strikeout performance from the 23-year-old Tolle, who punched out the first five batters he faced, allowing one run (a solo homer) on three hits and a walk over six innings. He registered 18 swings-and-misses.

“(He) gave us some energy,” catcher Carlos Narváez said. “We love it. We need it right now. We need it every single game. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the win.”

Tolle agreed.

“As you can tell, this locker room wants more than just a good pitching performance,” he said. “Happy to help, but at the end of the day, we want to win.”

Payton Tolle, K’ing the Side in the 1st. pic.twitter.com/PAuZgGh2k5

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 23, 2026

The early part of the game gave the illusion that the Red Sox were finally ready to turn a corner. They took their first lead of the series in the second inning when Trevor Story reached on an error and Jarren Duran doubled him in. In the fifth, Narváez clubbed his first homer of the season to make it a 2-1 game against Yankees starter Cam Schlittler, who entered the day with a 1.95 ERA.

But after building that lead, the Red Sox had just one more hit, regressing to their empty at-bats and quick innings. Schlittler needed 49 pitches to get through the first three innings, but just 32 pitches over the next three.

After the disastrous top of the seventh when the Red Sox watched the lead slip away, Wilyer Abreu led off with a single, but Story grounded into a double play on the first pitch. Marcelo Mayer followed suit, lining out after one pitch. The inning was over in four pitches.

“It’s not a secret, we got to be better, I think we’re getting good at-bats, but we haven’t found barrels,” Narváez said.

Tolle, who debuted in September and appeared in seven games, including three starts, looked like a different pitcher Thursday. The Red Sox promoted him after reshuffling their rotation following Sonny Gray’s injury. Tolle had worked hard all offseason to refine his secondary pitches, particularly his curveball, to enhance his elite four-seamer. He showed improvement in spring training, but ultimately lost out on a rotation spot to Connelly Early.

But he was downright dominant Thursday against the Yankees, relying heavily on the four-seamer through the first three innings before expertly mixing in his sinker, curveball, cutter and changeup.

“A lot better, to be honest, compared to last season,” Narváez said. “We knew that fastball is elite, one of the top fastballs in the game. But actually, the curveball is a true curveball. The changeup has split action going down. He can throw any pitch in any count right now and that’s a big improvement for him.”

Tolle hadn’t pitched in 10 days as he was held back from his start for Triple-A Worcester on Sunday — the Red Sox weren’t sure if they’d need him in Boston with bad weather in the forecast. While he got on the mound a few times in between starts, the prolonged stretch could have meant rust. Instead, he was locked in.

“It felt like it had been three months,” Tolle said. “So it was good to be back out there.”

He retired the first nine batters he faced before loading the bases in the fourth on a walk and two singles, signaling disaster. But he deftly worked through the Yankees lineup, striking out Stanton with his first changeup of the night, getting Randal Grichuk to fly out and then catching Trent Grisham looking on a cutter.

“He was impressive,” manager Alex Cora said. “He was under control. The moment wasn’t too big for him. Pounded the strike zone, which is the most important thing.”

Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s solo homer just inside Pesky’s Pole in the fifth was the lone blemish on his line.

At 23, Tolle became the youngest Red Sox pitcher to strike out as many as 11 Yankees batters since Red Ruffing in 1927 (a game in which Ruffing pitched 15 innings, allowing eight runs and 11 walks, but recorded 12 strikeouts).

But the lineup’s inability to add on to its early runs cost Tolle. So did a leaky bullpen. Coulombe had a 1.80 ERA through his first eight appearances, but after allowing a run in Monday’s loss to the Detroit Tigers, he struggled again Thursday. He loaded the bases with one out before getting a strikeout and turning the ball over to Weissert. Pinch hitter Cody Bellinger hit a two-run single to left, wiping out the Red Sox’s lead. Aaron Judge tacked on another run.

“We’ve been saying ‘I know it’s early,’ but we cannot have that mentality,” Narváez said. “It’s time to go. We got to flush it. Of course, it doesn’t feel right, but we got to flush it. We got six important games on the road.”

The lineup was without outfielder Roman Anthony for the second straight day as he deals with upper back soreness. Anthony felt a spasm after a line drive in Tuesday’s series opener against the Yankees and sat out Wednesday. He’s optimistic that it’s nothing major and said it’s not the same injury as the low back tightness he had last August before the more severe oblique injury in September.

“We’ve been taking care of it in the training room and I’m doing everything I can to kind of get back out there,” Anthony said. “Just a weird thing to happen on a swing, but I’m not too worried about it … Right now, I’m in a good spot and I’ll be ready to play in the next couple of days.”

As the Red Sox head on the road for six games against the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays, Cora was asked if it would be good to get away after a tough homestand.

“We’re about to see,” he said. “We like it at home. We like playing at Fenway, we like sleeping in our beds. I know it was a tough one, two tough teams. They pitched a lot better than us and got clutch hits and we got swept, that’s it.”