Erik Boland: Yankees' Cam Schlittler, a Massachusetts native, shuts down Red Sox to complete sweep
Yankees pitcher Cam Schlittler throws against the Red Sox during the second inning at Fenway Park on Thursday in Boston, Mass. Credit: Getty Images/Winslow Townson
BOSTON – The buildup to the event turned out to be far more riveting than the event itself.
Cam Schlittler’s first career outing at Fenway Park, the ballpark he grew up in nearby Walpole and dreamed of pitching in as a fan of the Red Sox, had the makings of a major happening.
Turned out, and Schlittler and the Yankees certainly weren’t disappointed by this, the night proceeded relatively benignly as they finished a three-game sweep with a 4-2 win.
Schlittler was plenty good enough Thursday night, though it didn’t approach his performance from Game 3 of last October’s AL Wild Card Series when the righthander carved up the Red Sox over eight scoreless innings, striking out 12 in the process. But almost nothing the righty could have done would have approached that.
Still, the 25-year-old, even with his fastball velocity a tick down — certainly not a concern on a chilly and windy night but something to keeb tabs on — allowed two runs (one earned) and four hits over eight innings. He is 3-1, 1.77.
He didn’t have his best stuff — “it wasn’t great,” Schlittler said — but that’s the ultimate test for top pitchers; finding a way when their stuff isn’t great.
On this night, test passed.
“That’s an ace-like performance,” said manager Aaron Boone, whose team has won six straight.
Schlittler, who allowed his first homer of the season, walked one and struck out a season-low five in an overall impressive 96-pitch outing. He threw six, four and 11 pitches, respectively, in innings 6-8.
It was evident early that Schlittler’s night here would be memorable only for personal reasons, and not for any ugliness directed toward him or, for that matter, toward his parents or other family members and the sizable number of friends the former Northeastern pitcher had rooting for him.
In short, it ranked much lower on the abuse scale than he predicted.
Earlier in the week, Schlittler figured on an “ugly” atmosphere at Fenway, with plenty of reasons to believe so. That was because of some of the anonymous trolling, which included a number of death threats, he received on social media leading up to the start.
It was similar to what he experienced in advance of last year’s Game 3. Schlittler had said the social media nastiness helped fuel his efforts.
But on this night, the Fenway faithful seemed far more concerned with their favorite team’s stumble out of the 2026 gate (9-16 after Thursday’s loss) than anything else.
Schlittler walked in relative anonymity in the outfield toward the rightfield bullpen at 5:23 p.m. to begin his warmup.
The bullpens, tucked up hard against the stands as they are, make them ripe for hecklers who can get within arm’s length of visiting pitchers. But nothing out of the ordinary occurred, verbal or otherwise.
“I mean, it was a couple of things,” Schlittler said with a smile of some things he heard in the bullpen. “But not too bad. You underestimate how many genuine people are out there compared to on line.”
Speaking on Tuesday of what he had dealt with on social media leading up to Thursday’s start, Schlittler said: “[I’ve] dealt with stuff for six months now. Not overly concerned and just looking forward to Thursday.”
Though Schlittler didn’t take the online vitriol too seriously beforehand, the Yankees did.
The club, along with local authorities, beefed up security around the visiting bullpen starting with Tuesday’s series opener and for Wednesday as well, so the increase seen on Thursday wouldn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary for Schlittler’s outing.
The boos, as they are in every road city, were loudest for Aaron Judge during pregame introductions. As Schlittler finished the last of his warmup pitches, there was even a smattering of applause — along with some boos, of course — that could be heard upon his name being announced.
There’s that old saying about poking the bear and, in the end, maybe Red Sox fans realized invective isn’t the way to get under Schlittler’s skin.
Now 20 regular-season starts into the young pitcher’s career, the search for exactly how to do so continues.
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.
