Yankees' Cam Schlittler Has Become the Red Sox Worst Nightmare

The most lopsided "rivalry" in sports history is the Harlem Globetrotters against the Washington Generals, the former defeating the latter in more than 99.9 percent of their more than 16,000 exhibitions.

But the second-most lopsided rivalry has quickly become Cam Schlittler's dominance of the Boston Red Sox.

Even before Schlittler's first career appearance against the Red Sox in last year's wild card round, it was a full-blown narrative that the Yankees had found a budding star who was born and raised in East Walpole, Massachusetts, before playing college ball at Boston's Northeastern University—where the Red Sox never bothered to scout him much.

After some Red Sox fans harassed Schlittler and his family on social media in advance of that game, it became personal.

He eviscerated Boston a year ago in eight shutout innings with 12 strikeouts in a winner-take-all affair. It was one of the most dominant postseason performances in pitching history.

Schlittler hasn't slowed down since.

He faced Boston four times in the 2026 regular season, allowing just two earned runs in 24.1 innings. That's a 0.74 ERA, along with a 0.99 WHIP and 10.0 K/9.

But it appears he really loves facing Boston in the postseason, delivering another 6.1 scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts and just two hits allowed in Tuesday night's 9-0 Game 1 victory.

Schlittler set the tone early, striking out the side in the first inning.

It did take him 22 pitches to get out of the first, thanks to a 10-pitch AB by Adley Rutschman that ended with an opposite-field single. But perhaps more than the strikeouts, that battle showed how hard it would be to muster anything at all against the man who will be named the AL Cy Young winner in about six weeks.

After Rutschman's single, Schlittler retired 18 of the next 19 batters, with a Jarren Duran walk the only reason he had to pitch out of the stretch.

Schlittler set a career high with 24 swings and misses, 14 of which came against his four-seamer.

The real story, though, was the curveball that he threw a staggering 32 times. His previous high was 20, usually the fourth-most utilized pitch in his arsenal. But that Uncle Charlie was so lethal on the first two strikeouts to Roman Anthony and Willson Contreras that he couldn't help but keep going back to it.

At that point, the scouting notebook was worthless to the Red Sox.

Although given the history of Schlittler vs. Boston, perhaps it already was.

Factoring in the two postseason starts, Schlittler's career line against the Red Sox now stands at: 38.2 IP, 22 H, 2 ER, 10 BB, 49 K; 0.47 ERA, 0.83 WHIP, 11.4 K/9

I mean, come on.

That's an "Are we sure that kid is only 12?" Little League World Series-type of pitching line.

Pretty sure that guy who went viral two months ago for trying to throw a perfect game with Roy Oswalt in MVP Baseball 2005 wasn't even that unhittable.

But it has already become business as usual in just his second season in the bigs.

Schlittler couldn't beat the Red Sox by himself, though. Only Shohei Ohtani could pull off something like that.

He needed some run support to get the win, and adding to Boston's "How did we miss on that guy?" misery, Ben Rice (from Cohasset, Massachusetts) delivered some postseason history of his own with four hits, two home runs and six RBI.

During the regular season, Rice had a .473 OPS against the Red Sox, striking out in 16 of his 46 plate appearances. But like Schlittler, he grew up as a Yankees fan behind enemy lines, and he sure did bring the goods when it mattered most.

So, is the series already over?

After nearly two months of preparing ourselves for this inevitable clash of the Northeast titans?

If you watched any of the games on Tuesday, you might have heard a dozen or so times that, in the first four years of this 12-team postseason format, the team that won Game 1 of the wild card round won the series 15 of 16 times, most of them in sweeps.

The lone exception to that rule, though?

Last year's Yankees-Red Sox battle, in which the Yankees lost the opener to Cy Young runner-up Garrett Crochet before coming back to win Games 2 and 3.

Unfortunately for Boston, there shall be no rest for the wicked.

The 2025 Yankees came back by putting a hurtin' on Brayan Bello and Connelly Early—two zero-time All-Stars who otherwise have never pitched in the postseason.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, will need to rally against Max Fried and Gerrit Cole.

And, well, Fried has owned Boston almost as completely as Schlittler has, with a 1.24 ERA in seven starts over the past two years.

So, you know, good luck with that.