Yankees’ Cam Schlittler slays Red Sox with historic outing in wild-card clincher

NEW YORK — The Yankees would’ve been happy with four or five strong innings from rookie starter Cam Schlittler against the Red Sox in Thursday night’s decisive Game 3 of the Wild Card Series.

Their confidence in the rookie right-hander hasn’t wavered all summer since the top pitching prospect was promoted to the big-league staff, but this start was another animal, something he’s never experienced before.

What they got from Schlittler was historic.

Schlittler pitched eight scoreless innings with 12 strikeouts to shut the Red Sox down in a 4-0 win that sent the Yankees to the AL Division Series against the Toronto Blue Jays. Closer David Bednar got the final three outs for New York at Yankee Stadium.

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No pitcher had ever thrown eight-plus innings with 12-plus strikeouts, zero runs allowed and zero walks in a postseason game, per StatHead’s Katie Sharp. Schlittler gave up five hits and no Red Sox baserunner got past second base.

The right-hander, who grew up a Red Sox fan in Walpole, Massachusetts, cruised from the start and pumped triple digits with ease.

He hit 100 mph six times in the first inning, surpassing the total number of triple-digit pitches he threw in all 14 of his regular-season starts combined. He ended up with 11 pitches at 100 mph or higher, but with the radar gun often rounding up on the ESPN broadcast, it felt like he was sitting at that number all night.

Schlittler and Red Sox rookie Connelly Early traded zeros through the first three frames in what had the makings of a pitchers’ duel — until the bottom of the fourth inning, when it unraveled for Boston. The Yankees scored four runs on four hits and a walk.

It was an implosion reminiscent of the Yankees’ fifth-inning meltdown in Game 5 of the World Series last fall — featuring blunders and bad batted-ball luck.

It started when Cody Bellinger skied a fly ball into shallow right-center to lead off the inning. It should have been an easy first out. Instead, it landed in the Bermuda Triangle between Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu and Romy Gonzalez. According to Statcast, the double had a 7% hit probability.

After a walk to Giancarlo Stanton, Ben Rice struck out swinging, his second at-bat in a row where he was dismantled by Early.

Up next was Amed Rosario, who only started on Thursday night because of his success against left-handed pitching. Rosario hooked a ground ball single through the left side to score Bellinger and give the Yankees the lead.

Jazz Chisholm followed with a line-drive single to right field and Anthony Volpe poked another RBI single to the right side, driving in Stanton.

Then, on the ninth pitch of Austin Wells’ battle with Early, the Yankees catcher bounced what could’ve been an inning-ending double play to first baseman Nathaniel Lowe. The chopper bounced off Lowe’s glove and into shallow right field, scoring two runs and sending a sellout crowd at Yankee Stadium into a frenzy.

From that point until the end of the eighth, it was back to the Schlittler show.

Fans roared when he emerged from the Yankees’ dugout to come back out for the eighth inning.

They went ballistic again when third baseman Ryan McMahon, who replaced Rosario at third on defense, snagged the second out of the inning as he sprinted and tumbled into the Red Sox dugout on the third-base line.

And as Trevor Story bounced a grounder to Volpe at short for the final out of eighth, Schlittler swaggered off the mound and pumped his fist in a rare show of emotion.

Schlitter’s night was done after 107 pitches, an unforgettable performance that will go down as one of the best by a pitcher in the history of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry.

With Thursday’s win, the Yankees also made history. They’re the first team to win a Wild Card Series after dropping the first game in the best-of-three.

Next, they’ll need to slay another familiar foe — and another club they had trouble with throughout the regular season (5-8 record)— in the division-winning Blue Jays. Game 1 of the AL Division Series will be on Saturday at Rogers Centre in Toronto.

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