Category: Sports News

SAN FRANCISCO — The only thing that could stop Cam Schlittler on Friday afternoon was not even wearing a Giants uniform. 

Because the way he was throwing, the Yankees right-hander just might have finished off a masterpiece all by himself had he not been on a limited pitch count. Instead, he settled for pitching the first 5 ¹/₃ one-hit innings in downright dominant fashion and then watched the bullpen follow his lead — just as he followed Max Fried’s from Opening Day. 

Schlittler and four relievers combined for a one-hit shutout, while Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton provided the offense with their first home run each, as the Yankees cruised to a 3-0 win over the Giants on a beautiful Friday afternoon at sold-out Oracle Park. 

After Fried and the bullpen combined for a three-hit shutout in the season opener Wednesday, Schlittler & Co. did them one better Friday, marking the first time in franchise history the Yankees have started the season by pitching back-to-back shutouts. 

“To see Max go out there on Opening Night and do something special and then Cam up here following it up with a one-hit performance — the boys have been putting in their work in the offseason, that’s for sure,” Judge said. 

Fernando Cruz, Tim Hill, Camilo Doval and David Bednar finished off Friday’s gem as the Yankees became the first team ever to hold an opponent scoreless and limit them to five or fewer hits through the first two games of a season. 

“Obviously, Max was great [Wednesday], bullpen was great [Wednesday], bullpen was electric today as well,” said Schlittler, who struck out eight. “So I’m really excited for Will [Warren] to get going [Saturday] and get the sweep.” 

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST MLB STANDINGS AND YANKEES STATS

Schlittler was untouchable, offering a potential preview of big things to come in his sophomore season as he recorded the first 16 outs on 68 pitches. He had a pitch count of 70 because he was not fully built up leaving camp after back inflammation had slowed him early in spring training, though that did little to affect his sharpness. 

“Nothing I can do about it, it’s out of my control,” Schlittler said of the limited pitch count. “Partially my fault, dealing with that little bit of a setback. But again, keep building from this week to next week and then hopefully get up to 90 pitches in a couple starts.” 

The only Giant to reach base against Schlittler was Heliot Ramos, who slashed a two-out double the other way in the second inning. The Giants only had two more base runners the rest of the way, on a walk by Cruz in the seventh and another from Bednar in the ninth. 

The 25-year-old Schlittler came out pounding the strike zone, including a 10-pitch, 10-strike first inning with an assist from Austin Wells, who had the only ball turned into strike three via an ABS challenge. That helped keep his pitch count in check and he turned on cruise control from there. 

“Just right where he left off last year,” Judge said, referring to Schlittler’s historic performance against the Red Sox in the AL wild-card series. “It’s impressive. He’s got the 100 mph fastball, but the feel for the offspeed and filling up the zone, especially with the defense we have, it’s going to be big-time for him.” 

Judge and Stanton, meanwhile, took care of the run support as the Yankees improved to 53-7 when both go deep. 

Judge was the only Yankee without a hit in their 7-0 win Wednesday, and entered the sixth inning Friday 0-for-7 with five strikeouts. But after challenging Robbie Ray’s 1-0 strike and turning it into a ball, Judge worked a full count and then clobbered a moonshot down the left field line for a two-run, 405-foot shot that gave the Yankees a lead. 

Two batters later, Stanton crushed a 414-foot homer to stay hot in the early going and ensure the Yankees will go for the sweep Saturday. 

“[Judge] didn’t play the way he wanted to [Wednesday], but he looked great today,” Schlittler said. “I had no doubt that he was going to go do something like that today.”

A promising season opener is worth virtually nothing. One out of 162 is the equivalent of about 17.8 seconds of an NBA game. The Mets will not score 11 runs per game and knock out every opposing starter in the first inning. 

The manner in which the Mets won Thursday, though, is what the team can find encouraging. Lengthy at-bats, many against maybe the best pitcher in the world, and a deep lineup filled with a combination of stars and grinders is how David Stearns envisioned this overhauled group. 

Among the not-sustainable happenings from what became a party at Citi Field: Bo Bichette’s first four Mets at-bats came with seven runners on base. 

Among the heartening signs for the Mets: Bichette is supposed to be stepping up to the plate with runners on base. This is what he and the Mets signed up for. 

One of the most accomplished players in baseball at hitting with runners in scoring position is batting behind Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto. When Bichette landed with the Mets as a free agent, did he wonder what his RBI totals would look like? 

“Well, I know I’m going to have a ton of opportunities,” Bichette said with a smile. “So I just got to be ready for those opportunities.” 

In his Mets debut, Bichette authored what might be the most hopeful 0-for-4-with-three-K’s-and-a-sac-fly days in baseball history and immediately reminded everyone why the longtime Blue Jay became the immediate fallback when Kyle Tucker chose the Dodgers. 

The memorable first inning might have looked much different if Paul Skenes could have put Bichette away. After Lindor and Soto reached, the Pirates ace reached into the upper 90s to get ahead, 0-2. Bichette, protecting, fouled off a hard four-seamer. 

“Two strikes, he gets behind in the count,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “We talk about the importance of getting guys in once we get in scoring position.” 

Which is what Bichette did, staying with a diving changeup and lofting a sacrifice fly to right for the first run of the Mets season. 

Coming through in the clutch, either with hits or just putting bat to ball, is what Bichette is known for. Since he broke into the majors in 2019 through 2025, Bichette hit .330 with runners in scoring position. In the span, 360 hitters logged at least 300 plate appearances in such situations, and Bichette’s average ranked fourth. 

“I think it’s just competing,” Bichette said about his approach in those situations. “… I would love to have that focus all the time.” 

It is surely part mental but also part physical. Last season, Bichette’s average bat speed for a swing registered at 69.1 mph. With two strikes, that average tightened to 67.6 mph. He shortens up to maximize his chance at making contact. 

Which he did in the fifth inning, when he stepped to the plate with the bases loaded, one out and the Mets ahead, 7-4. At some point, Bichette’s battle with righty Isaac Mattson graduated into a melee, a 13-pitch duel in which Bichette fouled off eight consecutive pitches with two strikes. 

“I know he probably wants a strikeout there,” Bichette said. “Trying to compete, see the ball as long as I can, try and outlast him. But I didn’t.” 

Mattson won, finally — Bichette swung through a slider — but the Mets may have won, too. 

A reliever who had expended 26 pitches already in the inning and 13 consecutive to one batter then threw four straight balls to Jorge Polanco for a bases-loaded walk. 

“I wrote that down,” Mendoza said. “Because even though [Bichette] struck out, then we see a four-pitch walk right away to Polanco, right behind him. 

“He’s going to make them work,” said Mendoza. We got a lot of guys that are going to grind at-bats, and that was the perfect example.” 

It is less a small sample size and more a speck of a sample size. But the first look at Bichette the Met hinted that his career high of 102 RBIs in a season could be in jeopardy this year.

SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants did their best to erase Opening Night and start fresh on Opening Day. They redid the pomp and circumstance under a Friday afternoon sky. The starting lineups were introduced again, sans any comedians or cable cars.

The organization even went so far as to post a graphic on social media declaring Robbie Ray its “Opening Day starter,” despite Logan Webb’s shellacking two nights earlier.

Manager Tony Vitello joked before the game that the day served as a “mulligan” after their 7-0 loss Wednesday. Can he get another?

The Giants’ supposedly vaunted lineup that was held to three hits in their season opener produced just one in a 3-0 loss to Cam Schlittler and the Yankees. 

The shutout loss made history: Never in the 143-year existence of the Giants franchise, from New York to San Francisco, has the team been held scoreless its first two games of the season.

What it means

Vitello joined a long line of Giants managers to lose his debut. The list of skippers to fall to 0-2 gets slightly shorter, but the former Tennessee coach still has plenty of company.

There hasn’t been a Giants manager to start 1-0 since Felipe Alou in 2003; Bruce Bochy and Gabe Kapler didn’t earn their first wins until their third games.

Who’s hot 

Hard contact was hard to come by against either starting pitcher, as the two lineups combined to produce two balls in play at 100 mph or harder through the first five innings.

Then Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton did their thing.

Judge, held hitless through his first seven at-bats of the season, unloaded on the third straight middle-in fastball he saw from Ray and planted it halfway up the left field bleachers.

Two batters later, Stanton found a similar landing spot for a solo shot and, just like that, the Giants were down 3-0.

Besides Judge’s homer and the double from Paul Goldschmidt that preceded it, Ray limited the Yankees to only three runners over 5 ⅓ innings in his season debut.

Stanton’s home run, off Jose Butto, represented the only run the Giants’ bullpen has surrendered in 7 ⅔ innings to start the season.

Schlittler was operating under a strict pitch count but still managed to pitch into the sixth inning while retiring all but one of the 17 Giants batters he faced.

Who’s not

Through 18 innings, the Giants have produced a total of zero runs, four hits, four walks and 19 strikeouts. Their only hit to go for extra bases was a soft double Heliot Ramos poked down the right field line in the second inning. As a team, they are batting .068 (4 for 59).

Their defense, which was a focus in the spring, continued to disappoint. A sloppy effort in their season opener was followed up by more misplays Friday.

Willy Adames should have been awarded his second error of the season on a would-be double play grounder that resulted in no outs after he had trouble transferring the ball from his glove and then misfired to Casey Schmitt at first base.

Luis Arraez didn’t have the range to stop another ground ball from Jazz Chisholm Jr. from making it into right field. And Jung Hoo Lee, new to Oracle Park’s unique right field dimensions, misjudged a hit into the corner that allowed Goldschmidt to stretch a single into a double.

The Giants were forced to bring the infield in on multiple occasions, and Arraez at least acquitted himself well in those situations, cleanly fielding two sharply hit ground balls and making accurate throws home to prevent two more runs from scoring.

Up next

The Giants will seek to salvage one win in their opening series, or at least get on the scoreboard, behind RHP Tyler Mahle, who will make his club debut against RHP Will Warren.

First pitch is scheduled for 4:35 p.m., nationally televised on Fox.

The Yankees stable of arms has come out the gate hotter than the Sun. After a 7-0 victory over the Giants on Opening Night, the Bombers, led by young star Cam Schlittler, continued to post zero after zero on Friday afternoon en route to a 3-0 series-clinching victory. Schlittler combined with four relievers for a one-hit shutout against a listless San Francisco offense, and a pair of sixth-inning home runs from Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton proved to be all the firepower necessary to sew up the win.

Both starters worked brisk first innings—Schlittler collected a pair of Ks, the second of which came after a successful ABS challenge from Austin Wells. Both offenses then built rallies in the second, but both fizzled out. Giants starter Robbie Ray stranded two runners by getting new Yankee Randal Grichuk on a soft liner, then Schlittler navigated around a two-out double from Heliot Ramos.

The pitcher’s duel continued into the middle innings. Schlittler in particular was in a groove, working efficiently through four—requiring only 54 pitches. He struck out Rafael Devers and Willy Adames back-to-back to end the home fourth with six Ks. Ray responded by needing just five pitches to retire the side in order in the top of the fifth, but that just gave Schlittler the opportunity to rack up two more strikeouts in a row in a 1-2-3 bottom half.

So, don’t you think there’s a player who’s been conspicuously absent from this recap so far? A Bay Area native who tends to bring the fireworks? Well, wonder no longer: Aaron Judge has arrived in 2026. After a leadoff double from Paul Goldschmidt to start the sixth, Judge turned around an inside fastball and kept it fair down the left-field line for a towering two-run home run. His first hit and homer of the year made it 2-0 Bombers.

Ray would depart from the game a batter later, with that one blemish tarnishing what was a very strong season debut for the veteran. But the power party continued after he left the game, as Giancarlo Stanton had a mighty greeting for reliever Jose Buttó: a 414-foot moonshot to left field for a 3-0 Yankee edge.

It looked like Schlittler could have kept pitching for six more innings, but since he isn’t fully built up yet, Aaron Boone opted to lift him for Fernando Cruz just before the third time through the order. He got about as far as Boone could have hoped, finishing his season debut with a sparkling line: 5.1 innings, no runs, one hit, no walks, and eight strikeouts. He was ruthlessly efficient, with just 68 pitches and 49 strikes.

With the combined performances of Schlittler and Max Fried on Opening Day, the Yankees got scoreless outings from each of their first two starters. That matches just one other team in Yankees history: the 2003 squad with Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte.

The Giants’ offensive futility continued in the seventh, as even Tim Hill grabbed a pair of punchouts; both Devers and Adames fell by way of the K against the funky lefty. Then former Giant Camilo Doval continued his triumphant return to Oracle Park in the eighth by striking out the side amid groans from orange-and-black-clad partisans.

The Yankees threatened to expand the lead a few times in the late innings, but those attempts fell by the boards. José Caballero nearly manufactured a run by himself in the seventh, but was thrown out at home on a contact play gone awry. Then Caballero got an opportunity with the bases loaded in the eighth before rolling over to Matt Chapman at third base to end the inning.

So in a three-run game, it was up to David Bednar to grab his first save of the year. He started out with a groundball to third from Harrison Bader, then got WBC foe Luis Arráez to roll over to second. A two-out walk to Matt Chapman gave the Giants a pulse and handed an opportunity to habitual Yankee-torturer Devers, but the former Red Sock pounded a ball into the dirt for the 27th out. Bednar’s save capped off a nearly perfect pitching performance—just one hit allowed.

Tomorrow, the Yankees go for the sweep. (That’s right: they don’t play on Sunday.) Will Warren will get the ball against veteran righty Tyler Mahle, with first pitch coming at 7:15 PM. It’s another national TV game: FOX will have the call.

Box Score

Cam Schlittler shoved in his first start of the 2026 season while Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton left the yard as the Yankees defeated the Giants, 3-0, on Friday afternoon in San Francisco.

It's the 60th time Judge and Stanton homered in the same game. 

After Max Fried and the bullpen blanked the Giants in Wednesday's opener, the Yankees had an encore. Through two games, Yankees pitching has allowed zero runs on just four hits.

Here are the takeaways...

-Schlittler was on his game early, getting two strikeouts in the first inning, including getting Rafael Devers looking -- thanks to a successful ABS challenge by the Yanks. Schlittler would continue to keep the Giants lineup off balance with his impressive pitch mix, even striking out four consecutive batters at one point.

His only mistake came in the second when Heliot Ramos doubled off of him. That would be all the Giants would get on Schlittler, who finished with eight strikeouts across 5.1 innings. He got 13 whiffs, most coming from his four-seamer, which averaged 98.5 mph.

Schlittler wasn't stretched out in camp because a strained oblique set him back, so he only threw 68 pitches (49 strikes). His limit was at 70 pitches. 

-Manager Aaron Boone used a right-handed heavy lineup on Friday as the Yankees were going up against the southpaw Robbie Ray. Ray is the only lefty starter they expect to see over the next week, so he felt it was a good chance to get Paul Goldschmidt, Amed Rosario and Randal Grichuk in the starting lineup. However, the former Cy Young winner got the top of the order in order to start the game and wiggled out of trouble in the second after Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Jose Caballero singled with two outs.

Ray mowed down the Yankees lineup until the sixth. Goldschmidt led off with a double that was assisted by a carom off the wall on the right field side. Then Judge entered the box for his third at-bat. Ray took care of Judge in the first two, but the two would battle. Judge got a low strike overturned using ABS and Ray battled back from 3-0 to get the full count. However, the reigning AL MVP would get the last laugh, getting around a 93 mph four-seamer on the inside part of the plate to deposit a homer over the left field wall. The blast went 405 feet. 

Ray would get one more out before he was pulled. The southpaw went 5.1 innings (89 pitches, 57 strikes), allowing two runs on five hits while striking out four. 

-Stanton, after narrowly missing an opposite-field homer earlier in the game, launched a homer of his own in the sixth. The blast went 414 feet (108 mph off the bat) off reliever Jose Butto. After getting two hits in the opener, Stanton picked up another two and finished 2-for-4.

-Judge, who went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts in the season opener, flew out in his first AB against Ray and struck out swinging after his check swing couldn't hold up on a 1-2 slider in the dirt. His third at-bat was the homer, but he then struck out looking in his fourth time to the plate. Judge finished 1-for-4 with the home run. After two games, he's struck out six times. 

As for the right-handers Boone put in the lineup, Grichuk went 0-for-2 before Trent Grisham came in the seventh innings. Rosario also went 0-for-2 before Ryan McMahon pinch-hit for him in the sixth, while Goldschmidt finished 1-for-5 but stayed in for the entire game.

-Five Yankees pitchers allowed just one hit on Saturday. After Ramos' second-inning double, Schlittler, Fernando Cruz, Tim Hill, Camilo Doval and David Bednar allowed just two baserunners (both walks) in 3.2 innings. Here's how the bullpen broke down:

• Cruz: 0.2 IP, 1 BB
• Hill, 1.0 IP, 2 K
• Doval: 1.0 IP, 3 K
• Bednar: 1.0 IP, 1 BB

Game MVP: Cam Schlittler

The Yankees were in a pitcher's duel early and Schlittler kept the Giants off the board long enough for Judge and the offense to push across some runs.

Highlights

ALL RISE.

AARON JUDGE'S FIRST HOME RUN OF 2026! pic.twitter.com/6hRfFSZqD5

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) March 27, 2026

Giancarlo Stanton LAUNCHES a solo homer 🔥 pic.twitter.com/kymDN2XzEK

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) March 27, 2026

What's next

The Yankees wrap up their series in San Francisco with a Saturday game that starts at 7:15 p.m.

Will Warren will take the mound against Tyler Mahle.