The rookie authored the greatest postseason debut for a pitcher in Yankee history to lead them past the Red Sox.
The Yankees have spent a century and change writing a decorated chapter in baseball’s history, but there is always room to add fresh new pages. Cam Schlittler left his penmanship in Yankee lore by authoring one of the most dominant postseason debuts in the team’s history, setting a new benchmark for strikeouts and completing eight scoreless innings to shut down the rival Red Sox in the Wild Card Series finale. With Schlittler chopping, the path was clear for the Yankees to proceed. They put together a four-run inning against fellow rookie Connelly Early and rode that crooked number with Schlittler’s right arm to a 4-0 Game 3 victory. With the win, the Yankees advanced to the American League Division Series, and will face the top-seeded Blue Jays beginning on Saturday.
True to form, Schlittler came out firing with triple-digit heat out of the gate. He set down the order in the top of the first, finishing with a 101-mph sinker to freeze Alex Bregman like a statue in a courtyard. Early’s maiden postseason inning was every bit as impressive, as he struck out Trent Grisham to begin his night, then sawed off Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger to retire the side in order.
Schlittler’s first time through the Boston lineup produced just one Boston hit and four strikeouts—the tall righty grabbed a fifth his second time against Jarren Duran to complete three scoreless innings of work.
Early was right there with Schlittler through three frames. In the fourth, Cody Bellinger led off with a Texas-leaguer into short center field. Wilyer Abreu and Ceddanne Rafaela charged in to try and make the catch, but came up empty. Bellinger hustled into second with a double, and the Yankees smelled blood in the water.
A walk to Stanton set up Rice, who could not figure out Early’s sweeper and went down on strikes. Up came lefty specialist Amed Rosario, who poked a ground ball through the left side for a hit. Bellinger turned and burned for home and scored ahead of the throw from Duran to put the Yankees on top.
A successive broken-bat knock from Jazz loaded the bases for Playoff Anthony Volpe. A laboring Early tried to jam Volpe with an inside fastball, but the Fox fought it off past a diving Romy Gonzalez to double the Yankee lead.
The Red Sox used their pitching coach visit to talk with Early ahead of the Rice at-bat, so nobody came to settle Early down before he faced ninth-place hitter Austin Wells. Wells put together a yeoman’s at-bat, which culminated in another bouncing ball to the right side. First baseman Nathaniel Lowe failed to pick it on a hop, and it bounced away from him, scoring two more runs as Yankee Stadium continued thrumming with jubilation.
Cora finally removed his rookie before Aaron Judge’s third at-bat, and the Yankees would strand the bases loaded against Justin Slaten—who caused thousands of pinstriped partisans to hold their breath by hitting Judge near his left wrist upon entering. But the damage was done. The Yankees put together a crooked number, not by barreling up the ball and hitting it over the fence, but by finding holes, working counts, and exploiting opponents’ mistakes. It was the kind of thing the Bombers themselves would often fall prey to in prior playoff runs—seeing them as the beneficiaries this time around was gratifying.
Given a healthy serving of run support, Schlittler only buckled down further on the mound. The two singles he surrendered in the fifth constituted Boston’s only real rally against him—he struck out three hitters in the inning. In the sixth, he worked around a leadoff hit and punched out two more Red Sox to reach double digits. Aaron Boone sent him right back out for the seventh inning. Cam got two quick outs on weak pop flies, then on his hundredth pitch of the evening, he struck out Wilyer Abreu on a screaming 99 mph fastball right down the middle.
Oh, but did you think he was done?
Cam stalked back out to his mound to begin the eighth inning and immediately grabbed his 12th strikeout. Duran followed with a foul pop wide of third which Ryan McMahon, now in the game for defense, tracked to the threshold of Boston’s dugout. He reached out, snagged the ball, tumbled headfirst into the dugout, and popped right back up with the ball safely nestled in his glove. And completely unhurt, mind you. Following that terrific catch, Schlittler got Story to ground to Volpe for the final out of a spellbinding, eight-inning masterpiece.
No matter what they tried, Boston could not square up Cam Schlittler’s heat. Plan B was not required for the 24-year old, who completed seven shutout innings and set a new franchise record for strikeouts in a postseason debut. He passed a few marquee names: Dave Righetti and Red Ruffing. Schlittler’s fastball velocity remained at or around triple digits all night, and for a man who came in with a walk rate above ten percent, he had no three-ball counts after the second inning. Among all the terrific pitching performances we have seen from the Yankees tonight, number one with a bullet is what we saw from Cam Schlittler tonight.
The Yankees rested their case after the fourth-inning outburst. A development worth keeping an eye on: in the bottom of the seventh, Cody Bellinger appeared to have potentially tweaked something on a ground ball to first base. He jogged gingerly toward first, but stayed in the game to play left field. He will get a well-earned rest day before the Yankees begin their confrontation with the Blue Jays.
David Bednar entered for the third consecutive night to close a second consecutive victory. After issuing the first and only Boston walk of the night, he retired the next three in succession, finishing with a foul pop to McMahon to send the Yankees galloping to Canada.
As one last footnote, the Yankees took their first postseason series against a team outside of the AL Central since the 2018 AL Wild Card Game, when they beat the then-Oakland Athletics. Now, they’ve beaten Boston in a playoff series for the first time since their manager walked off ALCS Game 7 in 2003.
The Yankees will set their sights on their next division rival. The AL East champion Jays will welcome the Yankees to town on Saturday at 4:08pm EST on FOX, with Luis Gil or Will Warren likely toeing the rubber for Game 1 at Rogers Centre against Kevin Gausman. See you then!
Category: General Sports
