Cam Schlittler is going to win the American League Cy Young Award 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 fuel a 9-0 win over the Red Sox in Game 1 of the AL wild-card series 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 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, 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 their 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 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 lineup 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.
What threatened to be the Yankees kryptonite coming into the series — the Red Sox 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 that they lost one of their best hitters, Roman Anthony, to an apparent injury Tuesday as he was replaced by a pinch hitter in the sixth inning.
Picking up where he left off in this round last year, Schlittler came out firing, striking out three in the top of the first inning — two on his curveball, which was his fourth-most-used offering during the regular season, and the other on a cutter that Wells used an ABS challenge to turn into Strike 3. The Red Sox’s minor win of the frame was Adley Rutschman fouling off everything in a 10-pitch battle that culminated with a bloop single, the reason why Schlittler needed 22 pitches to get through the inning.
After wasting Rice’s double off Tolle in the bottom of the first, the Yankees cashed in an inning later, thanks to the bottom of their lineup. 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 — and one out later, Anthony Volpe roped a single of his own.
Then with two outs, Wells lined a left-on-left single through the right side, with third base coach Luis Rojas’ aggressive send home paying off as Wilyer Abreu’s throw was up the line, allowing Lombard to score easily for the 1-0 lead.
After Rutschman’s single in the top of the first, Schlittler retired 13 in a row into the fifth inning, when he walked Jarren Duran on a full count. But it was just a blip, retiring Trevor Story to strand one of the three baserunners he allowed all night.
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. The Yankees then added a pair of insurance runs in the bottom of the frame against lefty reliever Alec Gamboa to give their bullpen some breathing room.
But the final blow came in the eighth. It started with some small ball, with a sacrifice bunt from Volpe and sacrifice fly from Wells, before Rice blew the roof off Yankee Stadium with his grand slam off Brayan Bello.
