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While Aaron Judge is on the shelf for the entirety of this best-of-three Wild Card Series against the Boston Red Sox, other New York Yankees homegrown talent stepped up to take Game 1 in the Bronx on Tuesday night.
It was two Massachusetts natives, Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice, who played a vital role in setting the tone with a key victory to open the postseason.
It’s no secret Schlitter, who hails from Walpole, Mass., has had the Red Sox’s number ever since his incredible eight-inning Game 3 performance in this same Wild Card bout last year. He came into this contest with an ERA below one, as Boston just hasn’t been able to figure him out.
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Schlittler has even leaned into the villain role he plays in the Red Sox fan base’s ecosystem, poking the proverbial bear on social media. He has always been able to back up his talk with his performance on the mound, and Tuesday night was no different.
Schlittler, a frontrunner for the AL Cy Young Award, got the ball from manager Aaron Boone in Game 1 because of his stellar regular season, and he shoved 6.1 innings without allowing a run, while tallying 10 strikeouts, two hits and one walk.
He blew past his career-high in pitches thrown for a single outing, hitting 117, while throwing a strike at a 65.8% clip (77). In short, Schlitter owns the Red Sox, and through six starts against the Yankees’ most storied rival, he owns a 0.47 ERA across 38.2 innings with 49 strikeouts.
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Of course, Schlittler’s performance wouldn’t matter without some offense, which was a large storyline entering the postseason, considering Judge was always on the fence in terms of making the roster. No player is allowed to join the roster midway through a series, and when the Yankees came out with theirs on Tuesday, the three-time MVP slugger wasn’t on it.
Enter Rice, the 27-year-old Cohasset, Mass. native who grew up a Yankees fan in enemy territory, but he didn't care. After having a breakout season with a career-high in home runs, he didn't care how Red Sox fans felt when he stepped up to the plate to take advantage of big spots.
Rice notched six RBI thanks to two home runs, including a grand slam in the bottom of the eighth inning to truly put this one out of reach for the Red Sox. He finished the night 4-for-5 with a double as well.
If Judge wasn’t going to be on the roster, players like Rice would be looked upon by the organization and its fan base to come up clutch. And in Yankees terms, that means putting the ball over the wall. Rice was up for that challenge on Tuesday night, and looks like he may be ready to continue that trend moving forward.
It wasn’t just these two Yankees farm system products, though, that got the job done. George Lombard Jr., in his first-ever taste of the postseason, looked like a savvy veteran at the plate, going 3-for-4 with two runs scored. Also, catcher Austin Wells got the scoring started with an RBI single and had a sacrifice fly in that eighth inning with the Rice grand slam to have a two-RBI night as he went 2-for-3 at the plate.
Red Sox starter Payton Tolle lasted 4.2 innings, allowing five hits and one earned run. But the Yankees crushed the Red Sox arms after that, as they had 12 hits for the game compared to Boston’s three.
While it was quite the statement game for the Yankees on home turf, the Red Sox once had the worst record in the American League this year. There is a toughness this squad can show, especially with their season on the line.
That will come on Wednesday night, as the Yankees are hoping to move right to the ALDS to face another AL East foe – the AL’s best Tampa Bay Rays – with Max Fried on the bump.
Boston, in a win-or-go-home scenario yet again in the Bronx, will send Sonny Gray, a former Yankees starter, to the mound in Game 2.
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