Written By | Sports Desk
Cam Schlittler allowed one hit and Ben Rice drove in six as the Yankees routed Boston 9-0 in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series, with two New Englanders doing the damage in the Bronx.
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NEW YORK
Somewhere in Weymouth and Cohasset, a lot of Red Sox fans didn't know what to feel on Tuesday night.
Two boys raised in their towns, among their friends and their Fenway loyalties, spent the evening dismantling the Boston Red Sox in the most famous rivalry in American sport. Cam Schlittler, the Weymouth right-hander who is the favourite for the American League Cy Young Award, held Boston to one hit over six and one-third innings. Ben Rice, the Cohasset slugger, went 4-for-5 with two home runs, a double and six runs batted in. The result was a 9-0 Yankees win in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series, and a best-of-three series that the Red Sox now have to win twice in a row to survive.!role~Preview!mt~photo!fmt~JPEG%20Baseline)
A pitcher who owns Boston
For a while this was the tense playoff duel everyone had expected. Schlittler went up against 23-year-old Red Sox left-hander Payton Tolle, and after four innings the Yankees led by a single run.
Schlittler's night nearly started badly. Red Sox catcher Adley Rutschman fought through a 10-pitch at-bat in the first inning and dumped a broken-bat single into center. It was the only hit Boston managed against him. Schlittler then retired the next 13 batters in a row before walking Jarren Duran with two outs in the fifth.
"[Rutschman] is a tough out, probably the toughest out there," Schlittler said afterwards. "He made me work a little bit there, got the broken-bat single. I feel like I made a good adjustment as the game went on."
He finished with 10 strikeouts and one walk on 117 pitches. He drew a career-high 24 swinging strikes, many of them on a curveball he had barely used all year. It accounted for just 21 of his 239 regular-season strikeouts, but three of his first five on Tuesday. When manager Aaron Boone came to get him with one out in the seventh, Yankee Stadium gave him a standing ovation and chants of "MVP."
The numbers against Boston are hard to believe. According to amNewYork, Schlittler has now made six career starts against the Red Sox, covering 38 2/3 innings, with a 0.47 ERA and 49 strikeouts. That includes last October's Game 3 clincher in the same round, when he threw eight scoreless innings and struck out 12 to end Boston's season. Including Tuesday, his 2026 ERA stands at 1.89.
"I expected to get one more; I got two more. Obviously, didn't finish it off there, but Paul comes in and gets the big double play and bails me out." (Cam Schlittler, on being sent back out for the seventh)
That double play came from reliever Paul Blackburn, who took over after Wilyer Abreu singled and got Ceddanne Rafaela to hit into an inning-ending double play.
Rice turns a duel into a rout
The Yankees scratched out their first run in the second. George Lombard Jr. singled in his first career postseason at-bat, and Austin Wells lined a two-out single to right to score him.
The turning point came in the fifth. Tolle had given up one run on five hits over 4 2/3 innings on only 83 pitches. Boston took him out anyway so that left-hander Erik Miller could face Rice. On the third pitch, Rice hit a hanging sinker 423 feet to dead center.
"I saw Miller was getting loose, so was definitely prepared for that matchup in case it happened," Rice said. "I did my homework, did my preparation, understand the pitch package that he's got."
He added an RBI single in the seventh. In the eighth, with the Yankees already up 5-0, he took a 3-2 sinker from Brayan Bello 408 feet into the right-center-field bullpen for a grand slam. It was the 16th grand slam in Yankees postseason history. Rice is also the first Yankee with a multi-homer playoff game since Giancarlo Stanton in Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS.
Asked whether it was the best game of his life, Rice paused. "I would say so, I guess," he said. "It's kind of subjective, but to do that in a playoff game, I would say it's definitely up there."
The Boston angle
What makes this hard for Red Sox fans is where Schlittler and Rice come from. NBC Sports noted that both grew up among Red Sox fans in Massachusetts and played college baseball in New England. The Yankees then drafted both of them from Boston's own backyard.
Boston still had reasons for hope. Tolle, the youngest pitcher to start a postseason game for the Red Sox since Babe Ruth in the 1918 World Series, was excellent while he was in the game. Garrett Crochet, who beat the Yankees in Game 1 of last year's Wild Card round, is only just back from the injured list and is working out of the bullpen. The Red Sox still have a lot of pitching. What they didn't have on Tuesday was any hitting.
The Yankees won this one without Aaron Judge, whom Boone left off the Wild Card roster.
Around the league
The Yankees weren't the only team to take a 1-0 series lead on the first day of the playoffs. In Atlanta, Austin Riley hit a go-ahead three-run homer as the Braves beat the Phillies 5-3. In Houston, Colson Montgomery homered and Sam Antonacci drove in two as the White Sox won 6-3 against the Astros. In San Diego, the Padres shut out the Cubs, who managed just three hits.
What this means for you
If you're a casual fan deciding which games to watch this October, Schlittler is the reason to tune in. A pitcher with a sub-2.00 ERA, a newly effective curveball and a record like this against his hometown team makes every start an event.
If you're a Red Sox fan, the maths is simple and unforgiving. Game 2 is also in the Bronx, and so would be a Game 3. Boston needs two straight wins in the building where it just lost 9-0, and the pitcher who has held them to a 0.47 ERA may well be waiting if the Yankees reach the next round.
The bottom line
The rivalry has lasted more than a century, but it has rarely been this personal. On Tuesday, the two players who beat Boston were both from Massachusetts. One more Yankees win ends the Red Sox season, and it would be the second October in a row that Schlittler's home state has watched him do it.
