Yankees send Cam Schlittler to mound in ALDS Game 2 as they to try to even series with Rays
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — He is, Yankees players said throughout the regular season, the guy they want on the mound in the biggest games.
And as far as the 2026 Yankees go, they don’t come much bigger than Monday night.
Cam Schlittler isn’t being called on to “save” the Yankees' 2026 season, per se. A given game can’t truly be described as must-win unless a loss in it means there are no more games to play.
But with the Yankees having lost to the Rays, 1-0, in Game 1 of their American League Division Series on Saturday night, few need reminding of the herculean task that awaits if the Yankees fall in Game 2 on Monday night at Tropicana Field, a game that will be started by Schlittler.
Teams that have taken a 2-0 lead in best-of-five series are 83-10 in Major League Baseball history. And even though the Yankees are one of those 10 teams that have come back from 0-2 down in a best-of-five — doing so in 2017 against Cleveland in Joe Girardi’s final year as manager after dropping the first two games on the road — that is a slender reed to lean on.
“We're obviously always thrilled when we hand the ball to Cam,” manager Aaron Boone said after Saturday night’s loss. “Hopefully we can go out and put some points on the board, though, to support him and come out of here with a split and head back home.”
Schlittler, who dominated the Red Sox in Game 1 of the best-of-three Wild Card Series, has pitched in October with stakes higher than those accompanying Monday’s game.
That was the case a year ago when Schlittler took the mound in the third and deciding game of the wild-card round and allowed five hits in eight innings in the Yankees' 4-0 victory over the Red Sox, striking out 12.
“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,” Schlittler said after striking out 10 in 6 1/3 innings in a 9-0 victory over the Red Sox in Game 1 of this year’s Wild Card Series.
That game impressed Rays manager Kevin Cash.
Cash, who has led the Rays for 12 seasons, making him MLB’s longest-tenured manager, noted that Schlittler altered the approach that allowed him to compile a 14-6 record with a league-low 1.95 ERA, numbers that are all but certain to lead to the American League Cy Young Award.
Schlittler throughout the season relied overwhelmingly on his three distinct fastballs, throwing his curveball an average of only 10% of the time in his 33 starts. In Game 1 against Boston, however, he threw his curveball 32% of the time in the 117-pitch outing.
“What he did against Boston, breaking out the curveball a little bit more and the way he was able to execute, that speaks to how talented he is,” Cash said before his team worked out Sunday at Tropicana Field. “But it is an elite fastball that carries at the top of the zone. He can cut it. He can sink it when he needs to. And then he's got off-speed weapons. A ton of challenge. For a guy that's 6-7, whatever he is [actually 6-6], he controls the running game as well as you can ask.”
Schlittler, who went 8-2 with a 1.16 ERA in 17 starts on the road compared to 6-4 with a 2.98 ERA in 16 starts at Yankee Stadium, was 1-1 with a 2.81 ERA in three starts against the Rays this season.
Two of those outings were at Tropicana Field, as he allowed three runs. seven hits and a walk in five innings in a 5-4 loss on April 12, striking out eight, and gave up one run, four hits and no walks in eight innings in a 5-1 victory on July 6, again striking out eight.
With the AL East title already decided, Schlittler’s last regular-season start came on Sept. 24 at the Stadium against the Rays. In what amounted to a meaningless game, he allowed two runs (one earned), three hits and two walks and struck out five in three innings, an outing Cash put close to zero stock in.
“I actually like the at-bats that we had against him,” he said. “Saying that, I think he probably went into the game knowing it was a little bit of a tune-up. They took him out after 70 pitches.”
In addition to going 55-26 at Tropicana Field, tying them with the Brewers for the best home record in the majors, the Rays had the lowest strikeout rate in the majors at 18.8% and the lowest swing-and-miss rate at 20.7%.
None of which seems to faze Schlittler. Little has in his two seasons in the big leagues.
“They've got a great lineup,” he said. “I've faced them a few times, and it will be good to go out there in a playoff situation.”
With the stakes not quite as high as they can be but plenty high enough.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
