As if Cam Schlittler needed any extra fuel.
With the Yankees facing the Blue Jays for the first time since their ALDS exit last season, and with Schlittler set to start Wednesday in the third game of the four-game series, the rookie flamethrower wants his teammates to have a “fire kind of under everyone’s ass with how the season ended last year.”
Schlitter knows that at least he does.
“I definitely feel it,” Schlittler said on “The Show with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman” this week, “and I gotta wait two days to pitch. It’s frustrating. I don’t think that necessarily they were a better team than us. I think they just outplayed us in the important moments.
“Again, there’s a lot to learn from the end of last year, and I think there’s a little bit of an extra chip on our shoulder that we can perform at the highest level and we can win a championship and bring one back here. This will be a really good first test coming up here this week.”
Schlittler started and took the loss when the Yankees’ season ended in Game 4 of the ALDS, allowing four runs — with two earned — on eight hits across 6 ¹/₃ innings. He didn’t get any help from the lineup, which managed only two runs, but he still demonstrated that he could deliver on the postseason stage even with his inexperience. It wasn’t enough to force a Game 5, though.
It served as one of the rare setbacks for Schlittler in his first taste of MLB life after he was called up in July to make his debut, as he went 4-3 across 14 starts with a 2.96 ERA before tossing eight shutout innings against the Red Sox in the wild-card series.
That success has certainly carried over into his first full big league season as Schlittler has collected a 6-1 record with a 1.35 ERA through his first 10 starts.
He shut down the Red Sox again. He dominated the Mets with his Subway Series debut, too — picking up the win Friday.
There hasn’t been a need for Schlittler to get revenge against a team, at least early in his career. There haven’t been many teams to have at least some semblance of success against him.
But Wednesday, he’ll get a chance for some.
“We’re in a great state,” Schlittler said. “Again, we have a very tight bond in the locker room, and that’s something that’s very important. We have a winning culture. Again, the road trip wasn’t a success, but we’re gonna have trips like that. It’s baseball. If everything goes well, we’re gonna probably lose at least 50 more games. That’s just how the sport goes.”
