Erik Boland: Yankees need to start Cam Schlittler in Game 1 of AL Wild Card Series
Yankees starting pitcher Cam Schlittler throws to first base during the third inning at Yankee Stadium on Thursday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Two rival talent evaluators, in separate text messages, expressed the same sentiment regarding the notion of someone other than Cam Schlittler starting Game 1 for the Yankees in next week’s American League Wild Card Series, all but certain to be played against the Red Sox.
“Talk about overthinking,” one message read.
But the Yankees are seriously thinking about it.
Very seriously.
And so it may well be lefthander Max Fried starting Game 1 on Tuesday at the Stadium, with Schlittler — the clear front-runner to win the American League Cy Young Award — set to go in Game 2.
In his final tuneup for the playoffs Thursday night against the Rays in a 6-4 comeback victory — a meaningless game for both teams — Schlittler knew he’d have a light night in terms of workload. He allowed two runs (one earned), three hits and two walks with five strikeouts in three innings in a 70-pitch outing.
Schlittler finished the season 14-6 with a league-low 1.95 ERA.
Before Wednesday night’s game against the Rays, manager Aaron Boone said “not necessarily” when asked about his ace starting Game 1, which two other rival scouts separately called, for them, a “no-brainer.”
Part of Boone’s reasoning — actually the organization’s reasoning, as this kind of decision won’t solely be the manager’s —- is that whoever starts Game 1 or 2 still would be able to pitch Games 2 and 5 of the Division Series against the Rays if the Yankees advance.
There is no team that causes the Yankees to overthink things more than the Rays, whose highly regarded analytics department has long been an obsession of theirs. That obsession, the desire to, in essence, “out-Rays the Rays,” was the primary motivator behind the disastrous Game 2 decision from the 2020 ALDS in which the Yankees used Deivi Garcia as a one-inning opener to be followed by J.A. Happ in a series-swinging 7-5 loss.
Though not going with Schlittler in Game 1 would cause an eyebrow or two to be raised in the clubhouse because of his season-long dominance, it nonetheless would not cause the level of confusion and anger that the 2020 ALDS Game 2 call did.
As one player on that team texted in summarizing the clubhouse feeling at the time of the Garcia-Happ decision: “What the [expletive] are we doing?”
More than a few others in the organization felt the same.
That move was indefensible as the Yankees, riding plenty of momentum, had opened that postseason with three straight victories — two in Cleveland in the best-of-three wild-card round and then a resounding 9-3 victory over the Rays in ALDS Game 1.
Throw in the fact that those in uniform, especially Happ, were stridently against the plan, and it was no surprise that it all went sideways. The Yankees lost the series in five games.
Throwing Fried in Game 1, or Gerrit Cole or Carlos Rodon for that matter, would not engender anything close to that reaction.
The Yankees have had the best rotation in the big leagues all season, and the group entered Thursday night with an MLB-best 3.26 ERA.
As Schlittler himself said when Cole, Fried and Rodon at last were all healthy at the same time: “We have three aces.”
Schlittler, who has as much self-confidence as any player in the clubhouse but combines that with a healthy dose of self-deprecation, does not include himself in that mix. “Those guys,” he has said of the veteran trio, “have done it for years.”
There is a legitimate baseball argument to be made, as one of the scouts said, to pitch, say, Fried in Game 1.
“Look, with that rotation, I get the thinking,” he said. “You win Game 1, which Fried obviously can, and then you come back with your hammer [Schlittler] to close out [in Game 2]. And [Schlittler] can still pitch twice [in the ALDS]. But, I don’t know, Schlittler’s just been so good. I’m just throwing my best in Game 1 and go from there. It’s still a no-brainer for me.”
After Thursday’s game, Schlittler said: “Who wouldn’t want to start the first game, you know? I feel like this whole pitching staff kind of deserves it. We’re all competitors. At the end of the day, whatever Boonie decides, that’s what we’re going to roll with.”
Pitching coach Matt Blake acknowledged that “certainly” there is a risk that the Yankees are “overthinking” the matter.
“I mean, obviously, he’s earned the right to pitch Game 1,” Blake said of Schlittler, who would be pitching on his regular fifth day if he starts Game 1 but would get an extra day of rest, which is another factor, if he goes in Game 2.
Blake, who said part of the discussion would involve “taking inventory of where all of our starters are at to give us the best chance in a three-game series,” said earlier of Schlittler, Fried, Cole and Rodon: “All four of these guys are good options.”
He isn’t wrong.
The way the quartet has pitched this season, there isn’t a “bad” option among them.
But there is one clear right one, and it’s Schlittler.
No need to think too hard about it.
Notes & quotes: George Lombard Jr. had an RBI double in a three-run seventh and hit a tiebreaking two-run homer into the second deck in leftfield in the eighth to give the Yankees (92-67) three wins in the four-game series against the Rays (96-63). The Yankees came back from a 4-0 deficit, helped by an incredible slide into the plate by Lombard, who appeared to be out by several feet as he tried to score on a wild pitch. He slid short of the plate, popped up, executed a diving cartwheel over lunging catcher Liam Hicks and touched the plate with his right hand to bring the Yankees within 4-3. Paul Goldschmidt’s single then tied it. Austin Wells hit his 14th homer, a drive into the Yankees' bullpen.
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.
