For the second straight year, Jazz Chisholm Jr. expected to be in the Yankees lineup for Game 1 of the AL wild card series.

For the second straight year, he was not.

With the Red Sox opening the series with lefty Payton Tolle on the mound, Aaron Boone started the righty-hitting Anthony Volpe at second base over the lefty-hitting Chisholm, a platoon that worked out as Volpe went 1-for-3 with a sacrifice bunt in Tuesday’s 9-0 win.

“It’s a tough call there, one I deliberated on the last couple days, but ultimately this is the way I wanted to go in this first one,” Boone said before the game.

Last year, Chisholm was not happy to be sitting against lefty Garrett Crochet in Game 1, and spoke to reporters postgame with his back turned to them at his locker, showing his displeasure with the situation.

Boone described this year as “different scenarios, circumstances” — Chisholm played just three games after returning from the injured list for a right thumb sprain last week, with Volpe making the most of his call-up from Triple-A in the interim — and reiterated that he was OK with players being “ticked off at different points” because they are not in the lineup.

“I essentially just texted him, like, ‘Hey, you might be the most important person in the building tonight. We need you to be ready to go for the biggest spot, potentially,’ ” Boone said. “Obviously he’s going to play a huge role for us if we’re going to get deep in the playoffs and win a world championship.”

Chisholm figures to be back in the lineup on Wednesday for Game 2 against Red Sox righty Sonny Gray.

It has been a difficult contract year for the pending free agent, underperforming for most of it before finally getting hot right up until he injured his thumb earlier this month.

Amed Rosario was also in the lineup for Game 1, starting at third base and going 0-for-1 with a walk against Tolle before Ryan McMahon replaced him in the top of the fifth.

In the regular season, Rosario hit just .208 with a .606 OPS in 160 plate appearances against lefties, but the Yankees have continued to give him opportunities.

“I know his numbers haven’t been as great as they have been the last few years against lefties, but you dig a little bit and I think he’s been very much in line with who he’s been, he just hasn’t got a lot of results,” Boone said. “But I feel like he’s a real threat.”

The Yankees could have started another right-handed hitter, José Caballero at third over Rosario, but they seem to value him as a 10th man off the bench.

Caballero is the best pinch-running option on the roster that has 10 pitchers and 16 position players, the latter allowing Boone to get aggressive with how he uses his bench.

The final spot in the bullpen came down to a pair of lefties — Ryan Yarbrough or Tim Hill — with the Yankees taking Yarbrough because of his ability to give them some length if needed.

Hill, a lefty specialist who was homer-prone late in the season, could get back on the roster if the Yankees advance.

By then, they also could add another lefty in Ryan Weathers, who was left off the roster to continue building him up from a left forearm flexor strain.

Weathers was likely only going to be available for one inning the whole series, so the Yankees had him throw live during Monday’s workout, giving him a chance to pitch more often if the Yankees reach the ALDS.

“If we go on a long run here, I feel like Weathers could play a massive role for us,” Boone said.

Trent Grisham made the roster after missing the final three weeks of the regular season with a hamstring strain and played the final two innings in center field (shifting Spencer Jones to right) after Heliot Ramos was pinch hit for by Luis García Jr.

Asked if the left-handed hitter would start in center in Game 2 against Gray, Boone said, “not necessarily.”

The youngest Yankee to start in a postseason game since Mickey Mantle in 1952 did little to slow the comparisons to Yankees greats. 

Just by watching, you would not have known George Lombard Jr. — all 21 years, 119 days of him — only became legally allowed to drink the champagne the Yankees soon hope to taste in June. 

You would not have known Lombard was playing against Double-A competition as recently as late April. 

You would not have known Lombard began his major league career with questions both about his defense and his mind — going through a surreal, six-game error streak that questioned his readiness. 

Because in the 9-0 win over the Red Sox in Game 1 of the wild-card series in The Bronx, Lombard began his playoff career without betraying a nerve or even an awareness of the stakes. 

All while making baseball historians reach for their record books about the youngest — and best — playoff debuts ever. 

“It’s really cool,” Lombard said of being included with Mantle, who started his first playoff game at 19 years, 349 days in Yankees history. “It’s definitely an honor. I have to pinch myself every now and then. 

“But we know what the goal is, and we know what we’re all trying to do as a group, so it’s easy to just focus on that.” 

It was just one postseason game, but the poise Lombard showed at a sold-out Yankee Stadium reinforced why the club has thought so highly about a first-round pick whose calm-and-cool demeanor, if not game just yet, earns comparisons with Derek Jeter. 

In his very first postseason at-bat, Lombard looped a single into shallow center just out of the reach of racing second baseman Nick Sogard. In his next, he chopped an infield single to the left side on a play former Yankees prospect Caleb Durbin could not make.

And after a fielder’s choice in the seventh, Lombard stroked a single to center in the eighth and came around to score his second run of the game. 

So a player whose name already had evoked Mantle became the fifth player in franchise history to record at least three hits in his playoff debut, a feat most recently accomplished by Bernie Williams (who had three hits in Game 1 of the 1995 ALDS against the Mariners). 

It was just one postseason game, but Lombard — spotless defensively — again showed the spotlight was not too large. 

“The whole clubhouse — all the guys, the coaching staff — I think the comfort and the confidence comes from the preparation and the work we put in,” Lombard said. “So that’s the biggest thing: Just be prepared, put in the work and just let things handle themselves on the field.”

NEW YORK – Aaron Judge was nowhere to be found on the field at Yankee Stadium. Yet “M-V-P!” chants still resonated through the raucous ballpark.

Judge did not join his teammates on the baseline for pregame introductions. But a total team effort pulled the Yankees through in a virtual must-win game.

There’s still no certainty if or when Judge will take the field this postseason. But for one night, perhaps the most important night of the playoffs – Game 1 of the best-of-three American League wild card series – the Yankees proved they could survive without their three-time Most Valuable Player.

Perhaps that’s because Cam Schlittler has become their most important player.

Schlittler tormented the Boston Red Sox for the second consecutive year in the wild card round, this time getting a massive assist from fellow New England product Ben Rice, the Walpole ace and the Cohasset crusher laying waste to the team they couldn’t avoid growing up.

This time, Schlittler took a two-hit shutout into the seventh inning and Rice drove in six runs as the Yankees moved a massive step toward advancing to the AL Division Series with a 9-0 trouncing of the Red Sox on Tuesday, Sept. 29.

Game 2 is Wednesday night, Boston’s Sonny Gray pitching to save the Red Sox’s season against Yankees lefty Max Fried. Tuesday’s final score might have you believe Game 1 was a laugher.

It was anything but, Schlitter nursing a 1-0 lead into the fifth and a 2-0 lead into the seventh, with Rice quietly laying waste to the Red Sox bullpen until his final, big blast.

That came in the bottom of the eighth inning, a garbage time grand slam off Brayan Bello to make it 9-0 and bring winter nearer New England.

It was Rice’s fourth hit and he tied a Yankees franchise record with his six RBIs, the fifth to do it and the first since Robinson Cano in 2011. Rice, the Dartmouth grad and erudite soul of the Yankee clubhouse, does not necessarily fit the mold of past Yankee greats.

In another fashion, he and Schlittler are both fitting right in.

“If you want to be a legend,” Schlittler said Tuesday, “you’ve got to do it in the postseason.”

Doesn’t he know it. Schlittler’s die was cast in the decisive Game 3 of the 2025 wild-card round, when he struck out 12 Red Sox over eight innings and talked mad smack after, chiding Red Sox fans for goading him on social media.

A year later, Schlittler’s tone mellowed only a bit, noting his good friends from up north came down for the game and while they are Red Sox fans, knew not to poke the bear.

His pitching dominance was nearly identical, though.

Cam Schlittler did something Tuesday night in the Bronx that put him in spectacular pitching company. 

Already a talent so sublime he qualifies as a rivalry separator in the blood feud that is Yankees-Red Sox, Schlittler’s going for bigger than just Sox-killer status: He’s blooming into postseason royalty, too.

The Yankees beat the Red Sox, 9-0, at Yankee Stadium and Schlittler delivered 6.1 scoreless innings, allowing two hits while striking out 10. Going back to last October when he first shredded Boston, he now has two scoreless playoff starts with at least 10 strikeouts in his career, something only five pitchers have accomplished.

And those pitchers are something else – Justin Verlander did it three times and Sandy Koufax, Randy Johnson, Kevin Brown and Cliff Lee did it twice each. Aces all.

"It's very well known that if you want to be a legend, which is obviously the goal, you've got to do it in the postseason,” said Schlittler. “Go out there and have dominant starts and put the team in the position to win.”

The Yankees can advance Wednesday with a victory in Game 2 of the best-of-three AL Wild Card Series. Schlittler knows, as he put it, “the job isn’t finished yet.” But he also said, “We’re heading in the right direction.”

Schlittler will win the AL Cy Young Award later this year following a remarkable regular season. He’s also got a 0.47 ERA in six career starts against the Red Sox, including his eight scoreless innings last October. Tuesday night, he demonstrated numerous times how good he is, to the point where his teammates were marveling afterward.

Anthony Volpe, who started at second base after only playing shortstop behind Schlittler, was agog. "From second base, watching some of these righties, I never had that angle,” Volpe said.

“Some of the swings were so far away from where he was throwing the ball."

Schlittler, who had a 1.95 ERA during the regular season, featured his curveball nearly three times more than usual. The pitch was landing for called strikes or swing-and-misses – he finished four of his strikeouts with it – and it was the perfect antidote for the times Red Sox hitters tried to guess early at his high-90s heat.

Aaron Boone noted that Schlittler and catcher Austin Wells excelled at picking spots to use the curve.

“I thought they did a really nice job of using that off of some guys selling out to the four-seam,” Boone said. “He was filling up the strike zone with it, too, so he was able to get strikes with it if he needed to and, obviously, chase. And then the fastball was great.”

“The amount of miss and weak contact I'm getting with that (the curve), I’m feeling like I'm in a really good spot with it,” Schlittler said.

“Cam was obviously awfully good,” added Boston manager Chad Tracy. “The fastball shapes are well-documented. He’s throwing hard. He also had a good curveball. You know it’s there, but he used it a little bit more often. He landed it, if he wanted to, for strikes. He was able to get it beneath (hitters’ bats) for swing and miss.

“We weren’t able to do much with him.”

When Schlittler finished off the sixth inning with a strikeout of Adley Rutschman on a cutter, he matched his career high with 107 pitches. Boone sent him out to start the seventh and he retired Willson Contreras, Boston’s most dangerous hitter. But then he gave up a hit to Wilyer Abreu and came out of the game.

“No debate to send him out there,” Boone said. 

After Contreras? “I probably should have taken him (out) at that point, but I got a little greedy.” 

The Yanks were trying to squeeze every last out from Schlittler, especially since they took 10 pitchers on the Wild Card roster so they could maximize their hitting options against Boston.

They got 19 outs on 117 pitches from Schlittler. It was plenty, especially considering the way their bats came alive late – Schlittler’s fellow New Englander, Ben Rice, homered twice, including an eighth-inning grand slam.

The pair enjoys beating their hometown team – both are from the Boston area. “It adds like a cool little layer to it,” Rice said of their shared geographical background and success against the Red Sox. “For Cam, too.”

“I mean, we love it,” Schlittler said.

They’ve got to beat the Sox one more time this week to advance. There’s plenty more work Schlittler wants to do.

He wants to be a legend, after all. Pitching like this, he’s well on his way.

San Diego Padres pitcher Michael King was on the way to etching his name into MLB record books, flirting with a no-hitter against the Chicago Cubs during Game 1 of the National League wild card series at Petco Park.

The dream ended on Nico Hoerner's infield single with one out in the seventh inning, with third baseman Manny Machado unable to pick up the ball cleanly.

There have been three no-hitters in MLB postseason history, most recently the Houston Astros' combined no-hitter in the 2022 World Series. Don Larsen (1956 perfect game) and Roy Halladay (2010) are the only other pitchers to have accomplished the feat.

King finished with eight strikeouts in 97 pitches in seven innings, getting the win in the Padres' 8-0 victory.

Here are all of the no-hitters pitched in MLB postseason history:

When he waived his no-trade clause this winter to join the Red Sox, Sonny Gray endeared himself to his new Boston fans by memorably taking a shot at a franchise with whom he did not enjoy his time.

“It feels good to me to go to a place now where it’s easy to hate the Yankees,” Gray said in December, which fans in The Bronx surely will remember on Wednesday when he takes the mound as the biggest obstacle from the Yankees sweeping the wild-card series.

After dropping the opener, 9-0, Tuesday, the Red Sox will give their season to Gray for one of the bigger days of his life. Before the stakes were clear, he was reflective of some of the worst years of his life, which he said snowballed in a way that only became fully apparent in retrospect.

Nearly a decade ago, Gray was shipped from the then-Oakland A’s to the Yankees at the 2017 trade deadline under circumstances that since have come under scrutiny.

Gray has said he “never” wanted to be a Yankee; Brian Cashman later responded that Gray had sent backchannel messages, through the Yankees minor league video coordinator, that he wanted to be in The Bronx and competing for a title.

Regardless, Gray never was happy, did not pitch well and made his discomfort clear to Cashman only after the 2018 trade deadline, when he told Cashman he was surprised he was not dealt away and never wanted to be a Yankee in the first place.

After that season, Cashman dealt Gray to the Reds, ending a 1 ¹/₂-year tenure in which Gray pitched to a 4.51 ERA and was hit particularly hard, by opponents and fans, at Yankee Stadium.

And so four teams and eight seasons later, Gray pondered why New York and the Yankees were such a terrible fit.

“I came from Oakland, and Oakland to here,” Gray said as part of a nearly three-minute reflection. “I think that maybe during my time [in New York] there was a lot of outside this, outside that, unfamiliarity with me and my situation and my family.

“It’s kind of like one of those things that you have a snowball or whatever, right? And there’s a snowball that kind of starts rolling down a hill. If you don’t ever stop it, then the snowball just gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and it picks up traction and it just gets more snow. And it just continues to go down this thing. And then the bigger the snowball gets, the harder it is to stop it or take a step back.”

The longer Gray stayed in New York, the worse it became.

He was showered with boos June 30, 2018, after lasting just 2 ¹/₃ innings and giving up seven runs to these same Red Sox. He was out of the rotation by August of that year.

“It just took me to get away and get myself into a different environment and then reflect on those things, right — reflect on what was good, what was bad, what didn’t work. And that took some time,” said the 36-year-old, who has been either good or great with five other franchises and was miserable with the Yankees. “But I do know that playing here made me a stronger person, made me a better man, a better husband. Ultimately, it made me a better pitcher, a better baseball player. And that’s kind of what I take from my time here.”

His time as a Yankee is over. His time as a Yankees rival will reach its culmination Wednesday.

What kind of reception is he expecting?

“I think it will be a playoff energy on the road, playoff atmosphere on the road,” Gray said. “As far as reception, this or that, it will be what it will be. I’m not going to sit here and try to control something that I can’t control because I ultimately have no control over that.

“It will be what it will be, and I’ll just do my part to be ready to go out there and compete and to pitch and to go win a game.”

SAN DIEGO — The crowd stood on its feet Tuesday night, watched the bullpen gate open in center field, and there he was, No. 44, strolling onto the field.

Joe Musgrove first started walking, and then as the scoreboard showed his face, began jogging to the mound. He stopped, tugged at his belt, pounded his right fist into his glove, and then skipped to the mound as his San Diego Padres teammates stood on the top step of the dugout cheering.

Everyone else in the sellout crowd of 47,084 at Petco Park was giving their homegrown hero a standing ovation, too.

The playoff game was long decided by the time Musgrove entered in the ninth inning, with the Padres routing the Chicago Cubs, 8-0, in their biggest postseason shutout in franchise history in Game 1 of their wild card series against the Chicago Cubs.

Now, even after Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado homered in the first inning, even with ace Michael King flirting with a no-hitter into the seventh inning, with the Padres out-hitting the Cubs, 13-3, this was the moment this fans had long awaited.

It had been two long years, Oct. 2, 2024, to be exact, when they last saw Musgrove step onto the mound.

Musgrove underwent Tommy John surgery after he walked off the mound in that 2024 postseason game against Atlanta, missed the entire 2025 season, and believed he’d be ready to start this season. Then, came the heartbreak. Setback after setback. He believed at times he could be back, and other times wondering if he’d ever even pitch again.

“I've been through a lot of a lot of headaches and a lot of negative thoughts over the last year and a half," Musgrove told a handful of reporters Tuesday night at his locker “You know, a lot of it's self-inflicted. I get into these ruts of just feeling like I'm letting people down, and I'm not holding up my end of the deal.

“But you know, the work and the effort I'm putting in is really all I can control."

Musgrove, who was told two days ago that he’d be on the playoff roster, began warming up in the eighth inning. His legs felt like jelly. He could feel his heart pounding against his chest. He hadn’t felt nerves like this since, well, maybe the night of Apri 9, 2021, when he threw the first no-hitter in Padres history.

“It was the most nervous I’ve been," Musgrove said, “pitching with an eight-run lead."

Now, coming in just to record the final three outs in mop-up relief, he felt as if he were on the mound trying to save a one-run game in Game 7 of the World Series, with the crowd on its feet screaming.

“I had been visualizing this and going through it in my head," Musgrove said. “So I expected it to get a little loud and people to be excited. But I didn’t expect quite that crazy of a mound."

When Musgrove stepped on the mound, he became only the second player in MLB history to appear in a postseason game directly after missing two entire regular seasons. The only other man to pull off the feat was catcher Clyde McCullough in the 1945 World Series, after missing the previous two seasons serving in World War II.

“I’ve been here before, you know, pitching in the playoffs and pitching a big game," Musgrove said. “So it was just the mental preparation, finding ways to calm down, kind of mentally putting myself in those situations, feeling how the emotions are going to be, and knowing where my mind tends to go in those moments."