Yankees' playoff rotation boiled down to Cam Schlittler, and not much else
Cam Schlittler of the Yankees pitches during the first inning against the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 4 of the American League Division Series on Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Going into this Division Series, if someone had told you the Yankees rotation would have a 16.88 ERA through the first three games, a Blue Jays’ sweep figured to be the only logical outcome.
That level of pitching carnage, at this time of year, had to be unsurvivable, right? But it gets worse. Only Max Fried, the $218 million ace and Cy Young contender, was able to complete as many as three innings, as Luis Gil and Carlos Rodon combined for a total of five.
Here’s the unbelievable body of work for the Yankees’ rotation as a whole: eight innings, 18 hits, 15 earned runs, four walks, five strikeouts and five homers.
“That’s the nature of the postseason sometimes,” manager Aaron Boone said before Game 4. “It’s not going to be perfect. The other guys are really good. And the Blue Jays have done a good job against our starters. Hopefully we can turn that around.”
Crazier still? Somehow, they were very much alive for Wednesday night’s Game 4, when the Yankees handed the ball to Cam Schlittler, the breakout star of this October run. And Schlittler, once again pitching to save their season, made sure to reverse that trend in short order.
After entering to Lil Wayne’s “Uproar,” Schlittler didn’t rack up strikeouts like the history-making 12-K performance in the Wild Card Series. That just doesn’t happen against the Blue Jays, who led the majors in both contract rate (78.5%) and lowest K-rate (17.8%).
Schlittler mostly kept Toronto in check, but when Devin Williams took over with one out in the seventh, the reliever surrendered a two-run single to Nathan Lukes, putting the Blue Jays up 4-1. Schlittler's final totals were 6 1/3 innings pitched, eight hits, four runs (two earned).
After Addison Barger poked an infield single through the vacated left side in the sixth, Boone drew boos from the Stadium crowd when he came out for a visit with his rookie phenom.
It was only a chat. Boone left Schlittler in — drawing roars of approval — and he escaped by getting Alejandro Kirk on a routine fly ball to rightfield and Daulton Varsho to bounce into a double play.
Schlittler’s first strikeout didn’t come until the fourth inning, but it was a big one — he whiffed Anthony Santander on a 98.4-mph fastball to strand the go-ahead run at third base. The Blue Jays did take a 2-1 lead, however, on a pair of singles and George Springer’s sacrifice fly in the fifth. Vlad Guerrero Jr. dented Schlittler for the other run with an RBI single that kicked up chalk down the rightfield line in the first inning, but he limited the damage by stranding Jays at the corners.
None of it made any sense. And not only because Schlittler, with a total of 15 major-league starts under his belt, had quickly ascended to become the most trusted arm on the staff. Other than the Yankees’ prolific home-run power, their rotation had been the team’s greatest strength during the regular season, and especially heading into October, when their starters went 22-5 with a 2.91 ERA that was second only to the Dodgers (2.58) over the last 41 games.
The late-season buzzsaw continued in the Wild Card Series against the Red Sox, when Fried, Rodon and Schlittler allowed a total of 13 hits, three earned runs and one homer over 20 1/3 innings as the Yankees rallied from an 0-1 deficit to win the best-of-three matchup. The 6-6 Schlittler wound up overshadowing the 19-game winner Fried and 18-game winner Rodon with his Game 3 clinching masterpiece: eight scoreless innings, 12 Ks, zero walks — something that had never been done before in the postseason.
“I knew what I needed to do, and the team knew what we needed to do,” Schlittler said on the eve of Game 4. “We were able to go out there and perform at the highest level.”
As we’ve discovered since, the Blue Jays are a step up in weight class from the Red Sox, who trotted out a lineup mostly comprised of utility players. Also, Schlittler was personally motivated by social-media attacks, originating from the Boston area, that targeted his family, a tactic that the rookie phenom said “crossed the line” in baseball’s oldest, fiercest rivalry.
But after Schlittler’s forever Bronx moment — getting revenge against his hometown team while bouncing the Red Sox from October — the rest of the rotation subsequently imploded. Gil lasted only 2 2/3 innings in Game 1, teeing up homers to Guerrero and Kirk before Boone got the bullpen up only 30 pitches into his start. The real damage wasn’t done, however, until Luke Weaver, Fernando Cruz and Paul Blackburn threw BP from the seventh inning on in what became a 10-1 rout at Rogers Centre.
Fried’s beatdown was a sobering development. He was 11-1 with a 1.82 ERA in 18 starts following a Yankees’ loss during the regular season, and finished 6-0 with a 1.37 ERA over his previous eight starts, including the Game 1 showdown with Sox ace Garrett Crochet. Against the Blue Jays, however, Fried had no answers. Nothing fooled the Toronto hitters, and an uptick in fastball velocity may have sabotaged his usual deception as he allowed eight hits and seven runs over three-plus innings in the Jays’ 13-7 rout.
“I felt like I was mixing a lot of different fastballs,” Fried said after Game 2. “And when I threw the off-speed, they seemed to be on it, too. I pride myself in being able to change speeds and keep guys off-balance. They weren’t off-balance.”
Schlittler was far more successful Wednesday night than the rest of the rotation, but it might have been too little, too late.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
