NEW YORK — Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice are from Massachusetts. More importantly for the New York Yankees, they’re damn good baseball players.
Both Massholes delivered massive performances on Tuesday in Game 1 of the 2026 wild-card series against the Boston Red Sox. Schlittler tossed 6 1/3 scoreless and punched out 10. Rice went 4-for-5 with two homers and six RBI. The Yankees clobbered their forever rivals 9-0 in a laugher to put themselves one win from advancing to an ALDS date with the Tampa Bay Rays.
For most of this picturesque autumn night in the Bronx, Schlittler was the main character. It was the second consecutive postseason in which New York’s flame-throwing string-bean right-hander gave his boyhood team a baseball swirly. The presumptive AL Cy Young surrendered just two hits — one to the second batter he faced and one to the last. Otherwise, Schlittler was nearly flawless, with a fifth-inning free pass to Jarren Duran the only blemish.
He did so with a barrage of curveballs, 32 to be exact, 12 more than he’d thrown in any other MLB start. That pitch-mix pivot kept Sox hitters guessing and led to a whopping 24 whiffs against Schlittler. The dominance was so striking that New York’s outfielders — Cody Bellinger, Spencer Jones and Heliot Ramos — each handled the baseball just once while Schlittler was on the mound.
“It’s insane, bro,” Jones told Yahoo Sports postgame. “Obviously I’m locked in, ready to make plays and whatever, but six or seven pitches will happen with Cam, and I won’t even think about it. I got one fly ball. Didn’t touch another one.”
“It’s kinda boring sometimes,” Ramos joked. “Like, is it time to go home yet?”
Nobody in attendance, Red Sox hitters included, was shocked to see the AL Cy Young favorite toss a gem. All season, Schlittler has bullied opponents with triple-digit heat, three unique fastballs, a dastardly curveball and the spiteful aggression of a more aggrieved man. Few batted an eye when the third pitch out of his hand clocked in at 101 mph. But when the 2022 seventh-round draft pick reemerged from the Yankees dugout for the seventh inning, with 107 pitches already on his ledger, a gleeful, unexpected roar reverberated around the ballpark.
A few batters later, Schlittler was done, but the night was his nonetheless. He finished with 117 pitches, the most by a Yankee in a postseason start since CC Sabathia way back in the 2012 ALDS. Simply put: Pitchers don’t really do that anymore. In the era of big velocity and deep bullpens, teams rarely let starters wander far past the 100-pitch mark. In fact, the only other 117-pitch playoff start since 2019 was Garrett Crochet‘s wild-card Game 1 performance against the Yankees last year in this very ballyard.
That one was a crowd-silencer. This one was a lot more thunderous.
“Any time he’s going out there, he’s got the most confidence,” catcher Austin Wells said of Schlittler. “Now, back to back years, great outings against them in the playoffs. That’s just what he’s going to do.”
It was clear leading into Tuesday’s showdown that Boston’s offensive approach against Schlittler would revolve around working deep counts and grinding out at-bats. Red Sox skipper Chad Tracy said as much during his Monday media conference. Maybe they wouldn’t rain runs on Schlittler’s head, but they could certainly attempt to outlast him in a war of attrition. After all, only one qualified MLB starter allowed foul balls at a higher rate this year. Drag Schlittler into the mud, force him to the showers after five, and Boston could take its best shot against the underbelly of New York’s bullpen.
The second Boston hitter of the night, catcher Adley Rutschman, used that strategy to perfection. He worked a 10-pitch plate appearance against Schlittler before dunking a single into left. It was the type of battle that threatened to shorten the hurler’s evening. Yet Schlittler kept on pitching, kept on blowing gas by a carousel of overmatched Red Sox. By the time Boston got a clean frame against a more mortal arm, they faced too steep a climb — a four-run deficit with just six outs to go.
That strong Yankees advantage was mostly Rice’s doing. He smoked a solo shot to dead center in the fifth, doubling New York’s lead to two. A few innings later, the Dartmouth product laced a single into right and plated the third Yankees run. Then, in the eighth, Rice delivered the final blow: a no-doubt grand slam into the home bullpen that sent Yankee Stadium into full, ear-splitting revelry.
Much has been made about Schlittler’s and Rice’s Massachusetts origins, how Rice grew up a Yankees fan in Sox country, how Schlittler pours fuel on his competitive fire by sparring with Sox fans online. But the real story is how two overlooked, late-drafted, small-school college players developed into franchise-altering monsters. Schlittler was a seventh-rounder out of Northeastern; Rice went in the 12th from Dartmouth. Besides, none of the players in Boston’s clubhouse care that the two dudes who kicked their butts on Tuesday happen to be from Massachusetts.
It’s no surprise, then, that when asked about Schlittler’s and Rice’s New England connection after the game, Boone directed his answer toward otherwise forgotten chunks of the 2021 and 2022 MLB drafts.
“Pretty remarkable. I mean, not two top-draft-pick guys. Obviously with strong Massachusetts ties. Obviously, that’s been a storyline for a couple of years now,” he said. “For them to go out and have that kind of night together to start this postseason, pretty amazing.”
Schlittler conveyed a similar sentiment. “Mid-round guys …” he said. “Just to have the confidence of being mid-round guys, having to work a little bit harder to get up here and embrace that together, it’s special.”
It’s also a testament to the Yankees’ scouting and development operation. Every single MLB organization had access to Schlittler and Rice. For all of New York’s financial might, identifying and empowering homegrown players has been an enormous part of their sustained success. Most of the Yankees evaluators and coaches who discovered, advocated for and molded Schlittler and Rice probably don’t care that the duo grew up in the shadow of Fenway.
Talent is talent, no matter where it comes from. If you can ball, you can ball.
And these guys most definitely ball.
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