Months before Cam Schlittler made the biggest start of his life, the Yankees’ rookie right-hander found himself in his native New England with an evening to kill.
The 24-year-old, pitching for the Double-A Somerset Patriots on May 21, had just wrapped up an early day of work on the road, twirling six scoreless innings against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, a Blue Jays affiliate, after an 11:08 a.m. start.
In need of something to do with Boston a little more than an hour away, Schlittler called in a favor: he asked for tickets to that night’s game between the Red Sox and Mets at Fenway Park.
Matt Hyde, the Yankees’ Northeast area scout who found Schlittler at Walpole High School in Massachusetts before he starred at Northeastern, came up clutch, securing some stubs for the pitcher and his friends.
“I love Boston. Boston is something that I cherish a lot,” Schlittler, a childhood Red Sox fan, told the Daily News, specifying that he only meant the city. “So for me, it was just a good opportunity to get in the city after a good win.”
But Hyde said Schlittler’s request was about more than just enjoying a night out with his boys in his hometown. Rather, Hyde believes that game at Fenway served as an informal scouting report, a chance for Schlittler to see how he stacked up with his MLB debut — unbeknownst to the pitcher — less than two months away.
“He just wanted to go and be a fan at Fenway and see what the big leaguers look like,” Hyde told The News. “Even though he had had the experience of big league camp and he’s been around our guys, I think it was to experience the atmosphere, the environment. It showed a lot about Cam Schlittler.
“He’s got this really great growth mindset of wanting to be better and not thinking that he’s arrived.”
Schlittler will tell you otherwise, but he did arrive on Thursday at Yankee Stadium, twirling eight scoreless innings in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series against none other than the rival Red Sox. The righty — who attended Boston’s 2004 championship parade with his father, John, and later gravitated toward Clay Buchholz, Xander Bogaerts and Chris Sale — added 12 strikeouts in his postseason debut, the most ever by a Yankees rookie in the playoffs.
Schlittler, who grew up about 30 minutes from Boston and first faced the Red Sox in a 2020 spring training exhibition game as a Northeastern freshman, didn’t walk a batter, either. Nor did he allow a runner to reach third as the Yankees cruised to a 4-0 victory, their reward for placing their faith and their season in the hands of a novice.
All 12 Cam Schlittler strikeouts! pic.twitter.com/Ggi5njqbCf
— Talkin’ Yanks (@TalkinYanks) October 3, 2025
“We needed to be perfect tonight, because he was perfect,” Red Sox skipper Alex Cora said after Schlittler’s 15th major league start.
“What a performance,” said Aaron Boone, but there was no surprise inside the Yankees’ clubhouse. Not from the manager, nor coaches, nor teammates.
And certainly not from Schlittler, who has exuded confidence ever since he debuted on July 9.
“I woke up, and I was locked in,” Schlittler said after earning the Yankees’ Player of the Game belt and a champagne dousing from injured ace Gerrit Cole. “I knew exactly what I needed to do out there, especially against my hometown team. As I told Andy [Pettitte] yesterday, I wasn’t going to let them beat me. I was just overconfident in that fact.”
Other Yankees noticed Schlittler’s laser focus and poise on Thursday and in the days leading up to his high-stakes start.
“He wasn’t scared of the moment,” pitching coach Matt Blake said. “He expected to go out there and have success, and he backed it up.”
“There are different paths to greatness up here, but this guy has come up and delivered right away,” Cole added. “He’s got it. I don’t know exactly what it is. It’s hard to define it. But he’s got it.”
According to his father, Schlittler has had impenetrable composure since he was 14 or 15 years old.
“He was always pretty dialed in,” the proud dad, a police chief in Needham, Mass., said after he and his wife, Christine, watched their son become the first player in major league history to toss at least eight shutout innings and record at least 12 strikeouts without walking a batter in a playoff game.
What Schlittler didn’t always have was his heater, as his fastball averaged in the mid-90s during his first big league camp this spring. But after bulking up over the winter — he put on 15 pounds — and building up his arm in the spring, he started reaching the upper-90s with ease as he forced his way from Double-A to Triple-A to the majors.
Having dominated the Yankees’ velocity leaderboards over his first 14 regular season starts — he had a 2.96 ERA over that stretch — Schlittler reached 100 mph 11 times on Thursday.
His fastball topped out at 100.8 mph, and his 107th and final pitch was a 98.4-mph sinker.
“It’s easy gas,” Cole said. “Like he’s not stepping on 98. He’s just flicking it in there.”
It helps that Schlittler has the body of a power pitcher, as he stands 6-6 at 225 pounds.
“You see the height. You see the frame. You see what he can do with the baseball and you kind of dream about it,” said Aaron Judge, who knows a thing or two about getting the most out of a large build. “Cam’s one of one.”
With adrenaline surely fueling some of Schlittler’s velocity, so too did some chirping from people back home.
Even though Christine said folks in Walpole mostly cheer for her son when he pitches, Schlittler said it was “personal for me” to end the Red Sox’ season Thursday, as “people from Boston had a lot to say before the game.”
“I’m not gonna get into it,” Schlittler continued, “but there’s a line, and I think they crossed it a little bit. I’m a competitor, and I’m gonna go out there and make sure I shut ‘em down.”
Schlittler then showed some understanding, as he knows Boston fans can be “aggressive” in their efforts to “get under people’s skin.” He was once one of them, after all, and he still clearly embodies their spirit after triumphantly posting “Drinking dat dirty water” hours after his stellar start.
But the next time some Massholes try going after him, he recommends they pick a different target. With tantalizing stuff and a mindset that can withstand the postseason pressures of the Bronx, he doesn’t need extra motivation.
“You know, Boston fans, that’s just how it is,” Schlittler said. “They just picked the wrong guy to do it to and the wrong team to do it to.”
