Yankees send Cam Schlittler to mound in ALDS Game 2 vs. Rays to try and save their season
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 because 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 Game 1 of the American League Division Series to the Rays, 1-0, on Saturday night, few need reminding of the herculean task that awaits should the Yankees fall in Game 2 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 all-time 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 – and the most recent, doing so in 2017, in Joe Girardi’s final year as manager, against Cleveland 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.
It came last Oct. 2 when Schlittler took the mound in a decisive Game 3 of the wild-card round and turned in a historic performance, allowing five hits and striking out 12 over eight innings of a 4-0 victory.
“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 over 6 1/3 scoreless innings of a 9-0 victory over the Red Sox in Game 1 of this year’s Wild Card.
That game impressed, in particular, Rays manager Kevin Cash.
Cash, MLB’s longest-tenured manager having led the Rays for 12 seasons, noted Schlittler somewhat altered the approach that allowed the righthander to compile a 14-6 record with a league-low 1.95 ERA, numbers that are all but certain to lead to the AL Cy Young Award.
Schlittler throughout the season relied overwhelmingly on his three distinct fastballs, throwing his curveball an average of just 10 percent of the time in his 33 starts.
But in Game 1 against the Red Sox, Schlittler broke out 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-foot-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, went 1-1 with a 2.81 ERA in three starts this season against the Rays.
Two of those outings were at Tropicana Field – he allowed three runs and seven hits in a 5-4 loss on April 12, striking out eight. In a 5-1 victory on July 6, Schlittler allowed one run and four hits in eight innings, striking out eight again.
With the AL East 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 over three innings, an outing Cash put close to zero stock in.
“I actually like the at-bats that we had against him,” Cash 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.”
The Rays, in addition to going 55-26 at Tropicana Field, tying them with the Brewers for the best home record in the majors, 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 one-plus 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, though not quite as high as they can be, plenty close 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.
