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Cam Schlittler is going to win the American League Cy Young winner in November, and likely garner MVP votes while he is at it.
But if the Yankees ace is going to keep pitching like this against the Red Sox in the postseason, they are going to start naming babies and streets and everything else after him around these parts.
And Ben Rice may not be far behind.
Schlittler and Rice, the sons of Massachusetts, continued to torment their hometown team and carry the Yankees, combining to run away with a 9-0 win over the Red Sox in Game 1 of the AL wild-card series on Tuesday night at a boisterous Yankee Stadium.
Schlittler struck out 10 across 6 ¹/₃ shutout innings, all of which came in a tight game before Rice helped blow it open — his grand slam in the eighth inning providing the knockout punch on his second home run and fourth hit of the night.
“The job’s not done,” Schlittler said. “We’ve got to get another win [Wednesday]. But it’s very well known that if you want to be a legend, which is obviously the goal, you’ve got to do it in the postseason.
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“So go out there and have dominant starts and put the team in a position to win. And that’s kind of the most important thing. I thought a lot of guys today did a great job of that.”
The flame-throwing, 25-year-old Schlittler, who mixed in more curveballs than he has in any start of his career, allowed just two singles and one walk. After throwing his career-high 117th and final pitch of the night in the seventh inning of what was then a 2-0 game, he walked off to “MVP” chants and a thunderous standing ovation from the sellout crowd of 48,737.
After dominating the Red Sox in a clinching Game 3 of the AL wild-card series here last year — tossing eight shutout innings with 12 strikeouts to announce his arrival on the big stage — Schlittler delivered yet again on Tuesday to give the Yankees a chance to finish off the sweep Wednesday when they hand Max Fried the ball against Sonny Gray.
Rice, who like Schlittler (and Anthony Volpe, who also enjoyed a strong night) was signed and scouted by Matt Hyde, led the Aaron Judge-less offense with four of its 12 hits — matching the same number of hits he had across six playoff games last year – while driving in six runs.
“I’ll remember getting a ‘W’ versus the Red Sox — there’s nothing better than that,” Rice said. “I’ll remember Cam going out there and just being lights out, like he always is. I’ll remember the atmosphere. It was just an awesome night.”
What threatened to be the Yankees’ kryptonite coming into the series — the Red Sox’s parade of lefty arms — proved to be their offensive key to Game 1. Their left-handed hitters (Rice, Cody Bellinger, Spencer Jones and Austin Wells) went 7-for-13 against three Red Sox lefties, including starter Payton Tolle, who lasted just 4 ²/₃ innings.
Making matters worse for the Red Sox was the fact that they lost one of their best hitters, Roman Anthony, to a recurrence of his hand injury in the middle of Game 1 that threatens his availability the rest of the series.
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Schlittler came out firing, striking out three in the top of the first inning — two on his curveball, foreshadowing how important it would be for him on the way to a career-high 24 whiffs — on a night when he lowered his career ERA to 0.47 in six starts against the Red Sox.
The bottom of the Yankees’ lineup started the scoring in the second inning, which George Lombard Jr. led off with a single — becoming the youngest player (21 years, 119 days) in franchise history to record a hit in his playoff debut — before Volpe roped a one-out single of his own.
Then with two outs, Wells lined a left-on-left single through the right side for the 1-0 lead.
Rice, who crushed 41 home runs during the regular season but cooled off some during the summer months when Judge was out with a broken rib, greeted lefty reliever Erik Miller in the fifth inning with a solo blast into Monument Park to double the lead.
Paul Blackburn relieved Schlittler in the seventh inning and rolled a double play ball to erase the inherited runner. But from there, the Yankees added on against the Red Sox bullpen, scoring twice against lefty reliever Alec Gamboa before Rice blew it open in the eighth, a fitting exclamation point on a night that belonged to him and Schlittler.
“Pretty remarkable,” manager Aaron Boone said. “For them to go out and have that kind of night together to start this postseason, pretty amazing and kind of hard to grasp a little bit, frankly. But I’m certainly glad we have those two.”
