Yankees starting pitcher Cam Schlittler is on his way to winning the AL Cy Young, but you get the sense that the right-hander enjoys beating the Boston Red Sox more. While Game 1 of the AL Wild Card series between the two storied rivals began as a pitching duel between young aces, it ended as an emphatic statement of Schlittler’s ascendancy and a 9-0 Yankees win.
This game began and ended with Schlittler, regardless of when he actually walked off the mound. The Weymouth, Massachusetts native was utterly dominant, as he has been all season and has he has been whenever he steps onto the mound against the Red Sox. The right-hander allowed just two hits in 6.1 innings while striking out 10 and walking one. That lowered his career ERA against the Red Sox to 0.47 and made him the second pitcher in baseball history to make multiple postseason starts against the Red Sox and strike out 10 batters twice. Bob Gibson is the only other pitcher who can say that.
More than that, this performance made Schlittler the fourth pitcher in postseason history with two 10+ strikeout games before turning 26, joining Trey Yesavage (2025), Josh Beckett (2003), and Jim Palmer (1970-71). It also gave Schlittler two scoreless postseason outings with 10+ strikeouts, which put him in elite company.
Most career scoreless postseason outings with 10+ strikeouts:
— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) September 30, 2026
Justin Verlander: 3
Cam Schlittler: 2
Sandy Koufax: 2
Kevin Brown: 2
Randy Johnson: 2
Cliff Lee: 2 https://t.co/tSYl9pXbA3
Schlittler’s performance overshadowed a solid outing on the other end from Payton Tolle, who allowed one run on five hits in 4.2 innings, while striking out four and walking one.
Despite his success, Tolle had to battle more. The Yankees had three hits in the second inning, including an RBI single to right field from Austin Wells, which scored George Lombard Jr. when Wilyer Abreu’s throw went too far up the line. After a 1-2-3 inning in the third, Tolle allowed the first two runners to reach in the fourth inning before he got Anthony Volpe to foul out to first and Spencer Jones to flare out to shortstop. Lombard Jr. got a poor read on the flight of the ball and wound up getting doubled off first base, allowing the Red Sox to escape the jam.
Yet, those long innings wound up playing a huge part in this game. After getting the first two batters out in the fifth inning and with left-hander Ben Rice coming up, Red Sox manager Chad Tracy decided to go to the bullpen. The decision could have been because Tolle has a bit of a reverse-splits issue. Righties strike out at a 31% clip against him and have a 12.3% HR/FB rate, while lefties strike out at a 22.5% rate with a 24% HR/FB rate.
So instead of letting Tolle try to finish the fifth inning against a fellow lefty, Tracy went to left-hander Erik Miller out of the bullpen, and it backfired. Rice launched a sinker over the center field fence to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead that felt insurmountable with Schlittler on the bump.
To make matters worse, when the Red Sox came up to bat in the top of the 6th inning, it wasn’t Roman Anthony who stepped into the batter’s box when the top of the order was due up. Andruw Monastero, who mostly plays against lefties, hit instead and proceeded to strike out against Schlittler. On the NBC broadcast, Red Sox analyst Lou Merloni mentioned that Anthony seemed to have injured himself on a check swing in the game against the Cubs down in Florida on Sunday. It remains to be seen if that is the case and if it could jeopardize the former top prospect’s availability for the series, but it added insult to injury in a tough Game 1 loss.
Yet, despite all of that, the Red Sox remained in the game until another questionable bullpen move by Tracy allowed this game to be blown open. With the Red Sox down 2-0 heading into the bottom of the 7th, Tracy called on Alec Gamboa, a 29-year-old who made his MLB debut this season. Gamboa is another left-hander who has been hit hard by lefties. The Yankees' two lefties he faced singled to open the inning before Gamboa walked Paul Goldschmidt and then Rice, another lefty, singled to right to bring in yet another run.
Things didn’t get better for the Red Sox from there.
Reliever Wyatt Olds allowed three of the first four batters to reach in the eighth inning. Tracy went to the bullpen again, bringing in Brayan Bello in the hopes of getting a groundball double play to end the inning and keep the score 4-0. Instead, Bello allowed a sacrifice fly, a walk, and then a grand slam to Rice to put the Yankees up 9-0.
BEN RICE GRAND SLAM
— MLB (@MLB) September 30, 2026
SECOND HOMER TONIGHT
YANKEES LEAD BOSTON 9-0! pic.twitter.com/T7VMWAIjp9
Rice, a Cohasset, Massachusetts native, finished the night 4-for-5 with two home runs and six RBI. According to Sarah Langs, Rice is the first player in Yankees history with multiple home runs, including a grand slam in a postseason game. The rest of the Yankees’ top four hitters in the lineup had only one hit. Instead, the Yankees' 5-9 hitters were on base 10 times and scored seven of the Yankees’ nine runs. The Red Sox, as a team, were on base three times.
That’s a little bit of a continuation of how the final month has gone for Boston. The Red Sox scored the fewest runs in baseball in September. On Tuesday, they didn’t get a runner on second base until there were two outs in the eighth inning. Now, they will turn to Sonny Gray in Game 2 to try and extend their season at 8 pm ET on NBC/Peacock. The Yankees will counter with Max Fried, who has one of the lowest career ERAs against the Red Sox of any pitcher in baseball.
The odds are looking good for the Yankees to extend their season long enough to get their captain, Aaron Judge, back onto the field and see just how far they can go.


























