In the soaking Yankee clubhouse, Cam Schlittler stood talking to reporters, dripping wet — Champagne was his postgame eau de parfum, considering all the celebrating that was going on around him. The championship wrestling belt given by teammates to the Player of the Game was slung over one shoulder and Schlittler was still wearing the high socks he had pitched with, though he had swapped his spikes for flip-flops.
It was a compelling postgame tableau only minutes after Schlittler’s compelling performance led the Yankees past the Boston Red Sox in their AL Wild Card series. Schlittler, a 24-year-old rookie, threw eight shutout innings in the Yankees’ 4-0 victory Thursday night at Yankee Stadium, sealing the best-of-three affair with the best performance of his life.
So far, anyway. Considering his immense talent, which includes a 100 mile-per-hour fastball, that’s an important disclaimer.
Seeing Schlittler soar in such an enormous win also might serve notice to the rest of baseball — the Yankees were banking on their starting pitching going into the playoffs and felt they had a powerful 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation with Max Fried and Carlos Rodón. After Schlittler’s outing, perhaps they have a terrifying trio.
Rodón was not great in Game 2 (six innings, three runs), but both Fried and Schlittler delivered gems. Overall, the Yankee rotation threw 20.1 innings against Boston and allowed only the runs Rodón surrendered. That’s a 1.33 ERA, the kind of pitching that can move a team through playoff rounds.
So if you can’t wait to see what Schlittler can do against the Toronto Blue Jays in the next round, who could blame you after what he did to Boston, the team the Walpole, Mass. native grew up adoring. Schlittler struck out 12 and walked none and allowed only five hits. The Red Sox had exactly one at-bat against him with a runner in scoring position and it ended, perhaps predictably, now that you know his final line, with a K.
The 12 strikeouts are the most ever by a Yankee rookie in a postseason game — he broke Dave Righetti’s 1981 record of 10 — and he was only the second Yankee ever to throw eight scoreless innings in his postseason debut, joining Waite Hoyt, who did it in the 1921 World Series.
Schlittler is also the first pitcher in MLB history to throw at least eight scoreless innings with 12 strikeouts and no walks in a postseason game.
“I mean,” said Aaron Boone, “what a performance.”
“We needed to be perfect tonight because he was perfect,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “I mean, the stuff is outstanding. It was under control.
“He was electric.”
Perhaps unbelievably, Schlittler had never had a double-digit strikeout game as a pro.
“That’s something I did in college,” said Schlittler, who was a seventh-round pick in 2022 out of Northeastern, which is in, um, Boston. “But my professional career, it’s not something I’ve gotten. I get nine a lot. I didn’t always throw 100, so once I got up here, that’s something that I was able to make an adjustment on…Obviously, (double-digit strikeouts) is not the goal, but that’s a good feeling, being able to go out there and dominate a lot.”
In the first inning, Schlittler got three outs on 14 pitches. Six of those pitches were 100 mph or faster. As the night went on, he worked efficiently. He threw his 100th pitch to finish the seventh inning and thought he was finished — seven frames was his season-high in his 14 starts during the regular season. But Boone had other ideas.
Usually, the manager goes down the dugout steps with a pitcher nearing the end of his outing to either have a conversation about the upcoming inning or to tell the pitcher his work is done. Instead, Boone just asked, “You good?” Schlittler was. Boone thought he’d go hitter-to-hitter with Schlittler in the eighth, but Schlittler breezed through on seven pitches, allowing himself a low-key fist pump as he came off the mound after retiring Trevor Story on a grounder.
“I trust his ability to go fill up the (strike) zone,” Boone said.
“To be able to go out there and put the team on his back, it’s extremely impressive,” Fried added. “I don’t think anyone’s expecting it, but to say that he wasn’t capable of it definitely would be selling him short. He’s got unbelievable stuff and he’s really put it together.”
Schlittler admitted he probably hadn’t fully grasped what he’d just accomplished. He did seem to enjoy it, though. When he came into the post-game interview room — toting towels because he was still drenched from the clubhouse celebration — he brought the wrestling belt and the goggles he had used to protect his eyes as teammates were spraying each other and set them up on the table. He cracked open a Gatorade before addressing questions.
“Sorry,” he said to the room as the can whooshed when he opened it.
Then he started detailing his night. He had felt great all along, he said, because he had gotten great sleep the previous two nights and he quoted some recovery metrics to back up his snooze claim. In his bullpen warmup, his stuff crackled, which made him optimistic about his night. He controlled his breathing well, which is a particular focus because it helps him conserve energy.
When he got to the dugout after the eighth, he knew he was finished and joined raucous teammates in the dugout. “I couldn’t really hear anything going on,” Schlittler said. “But they’re all pumped up and excited for me and that’s just a great feeling.”
This season in the majors, Schlittler got to 100 pitches exactly once. He threw 107 Thursday night and 75 of those were strikes, backing up Boone on his ability to fill up the zone.
“When you throw 100 and command the baseball and land your secondary pitches, you can be a problem for the opposition,” Boone said. “That’s what he’s capable of.”
And if Schlittler can continue this kind of excellence in these playoffs, the Yankees, with their starters, can be a problem for the rest of the teams still playing.
