Cam Schlittler chose not to pitch in the All-Star Game, but in his first start since then, he faced a lineup that was certainly star-studded.
The Yankees ace had swing-and-miss stuff, just not enough in the right spots as the Dodgers made it a frustrating day for him and forced him out of the game by the fifth inning in an 8-2 loss Sunday afternoon in the first game of a doubleheader.
Schlittler racked up a career-high 20 swings-and-misses and eight strikeouts, but at the same time, the Dodgers fouled off 27 pitches — including 16 with two strikes — as they made him throw 98 pitches across 4 ¹/₃ innings in which he gave up three runs.
“As a starter, [if] you can’t get through five, that’s not a good sign,” Schlittler said. “I think that’s the most frustrating part.
“I feel like the miss was there, the strikeouts are good, but it doesn’t matter if you can’t put a competitive outing together. They made me battle.”
Schlittler came out firing, striking out the side in the top of the first inning on 17 pitches — including whiffing Shohei Ohtani on a 100 mph fastball, Andy Pages on a 99 mph fastball and Freddie Freeman on a 96 mph cutter.
But the Dodgers began hiking up his pitch count in a 27-pitch second inning, which included Max Muncy reaching on a double after skying a pop fly to right field that Max Schuemann and Jazz Chisholm Jr. both appeared to lose in the sun.
Ohtani then put the Dodgers ahead for good in the third inning when he scalded a 111.1 mph RBI double to the gap to go up 1-0.
Freddie Freeman added an RBI single to make it 2-0 before another 27-pitch inning was over.
Schlittler racked up three more strikeouts in the fourth inning before hitting Tommy Edman on an 0-2 fastball to lead off the fifth inning.
Edman came in to score on Pages’ bloop double down the right field line that ended Schlittler’s day, leaving with a 3-1 deficit.
The short outing was less than ideal in the first game of a doubleheader.
“They put a good swing on pretty much everything,” catcher Ali Sánchez said.
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While Schlittler’s 20 swings-and-misses surpassed his previous career high of 19, they did not translate to the kind of success he is used to having because of the relentless Dodgers approach.
“I thought Cam was really good, but they did [have] a lot of heavy at-bats,” manager Aaron Boone said. “He had a ton of swing-and-miss going, which was getting him into 2-2 and 3-2 counts, and then they did a pretty good job of extending some at-bats with a lot of foul balls. So it was kind of death by a thousand cuts. I thought he was on his game. They just had a ton of long at-bats, so it didn’t enable him to get deep in the game.”
