Yankees' Cam Schlittler makes online trolls eat their words
Cam Schlittler #31 of the New York Yankees celebrates with his parents after defeating the Boston Red Sox in game three of the Wild Card series at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. Credit: Jim McIsaac
TORONTO
Consider this fair warning to Blue Jays fans: You don’t want to make Cam Schlittler angry.
Put down the phone. Take a break from X and Instagram.
Maybe stay off social media altogether during the Division Series.
There’s no guarantee that Schlittler will get the ball during this best-of-five matchup, as he’s last in line after his Wild Card Series Game 3 masterpiece on Thursday night bounced his hometown Red Sox from October.
But if the Blue Jays do enough to set up a showdown with Schlittler, they should post a PSA on the Rogers Centre videoboard to make the Yankees’ flame-throwing rookie off limits. And under no circumstances should any Blue Jays fan even think about harassing his family on social-media channels.
Among civilized fandom, that goes without saying. Boo the players all you want. Schlittler has only 15 major-league starts to his name, and only one this October, but he understands that comes with the territory. Even when the insults come flying at him online.
Just keep his family out of it.
The Red Sox fans learned the hard way Thursday after Schlittler discovered that his mom, Christine, had become the target of social-media attacks launched by the same place that he considered home. Schlittler is a Massachusetts guy to the core, having grown up in Walpole — a town roughly 25 miles from downtown Boston — and pitched for Northeastern, which has a campus in Fenway Park’s backyard.
That’s what made this nasty stuff sting so much more.
“I get it — it’s part of the game,” Schlittler said Friday in the visitors' clubhouse at Rogers Centre, the site of the Yankees’ workout on the eve of Game 1. “I think I was just kind of disappointed in the fact that being from that area, I wasn’t really expecting it to go that far.
“They’re just trying to get under your skin. But I thought they crossed the line a little bit. At the end of the day, there’s not much they can say now . . . I think they learned their lesson.”
Pro athletes and their families being harassed on social media is not a new story. What makes Schlittler’s version stand out, however, is what the Yankees’ 6-6 fireballer chose to do about it.
Such things are often mentioned as distractions for players trying to do their jobs. In Schlittler’s case, it served as high-octane fuel for his 100-mph heater, along with ramping up his intensity meter to 11.
Who knows what exactly motivates on-line trolls? But when they’re lobbing vulgar grenades from Red Sox Nation, Schlittler can identify where to fire back, and the baseball world got to witness the fallout.
With Schlittler fuming in the hours leading up to Thursday’s winner-take-all Game 3 start, all he did upon taking the mound was dominate the Red Sox to a degree that had never been done before in a postseason game: eight scoreless innings, 12 strikeouts, zero walks.
“I’m a competitive person. All they’re doing is feeding the fire,” Schlittler said. “The other day, it locked me in even more. Honestly, you can thank them as well for putting me in that position, being able to handle it the right way, and then go out there and dominate.”
Schlittler emphasized that he typically doesn’t look at his phone much ahead of his starts — no easy feat for a 24-year-old these days. But on this occasion, some posts from bigger social-media accounts were brought to his attention. Rather than derail him, they got him to respond in a way that the Yankees hadn’t seen since he was called up in early July from Triple-A Scranton. Or that anyone had witnessed in playoff history, for that matter.
Aaron Boone already knew Schlittler was off the charts in terms of high-velo stuff and steely mindset. But sharpening that fury into a spearhead, in that high-stakes setting, against his hometown team? That doesn’t just happen. It takes a different animal to conjure up that kind of performance.
“Cam's a tough kid, and I know he’s going to handle any slings and arrows,” Boone said. “Social media can be an ugly place sometimes, unfortunately. We try to prepare our guys and obviously support our guys in so many different ways, but Cam is broad-shouldered, confident, clear-eyed, and I don't think going to be affected by much.
“There's probably part of him that likes some of it and likes to be able to go out and back it up with his play.”
That certainly was evident Thursday night, when Schlittler became the first Yankees rookie and the eighth overall to fire eight scoreless innings in his postseason debut. Afterward, Schlittler showed up in the interview room soaked from cap to socks in champagne, the Yankees’ title belt draped over his shoulder.
Come Friday afternoon, it was recovery time for Schlittler, who pulled on his sleeveless hoodie and went back to the more mundane between-starts routine. His friends back home offered congrats, sort of.
“I think they’re bummed out. Obviously, they’re all Red Sox fans,” he said. “But I told them that’s exactly what was going to happen. They’ll get over it. Hockey season’s coming up, basketball season’s coming up. They got other things to distract them.”
But not Schlittler. His Yankees have plenty of baseball left, and they have the Red Sox fans to thank for that.
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.
