New York Yankees starting pitcher Cam Schlittler turned in arguably the biggest showing of the club’s season as they defeated the Boston Red Sox 4-0 in a pivotal Wild Card Game 3 and earned a date with the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALDS.
Schlittler was not pleased with how some of Boston’s fans chose to conduct themselves leading up to his start, and the Massachusetts native was more than willing to credit his New England roots as one of the driving forces behind Thursday night's illustration of mental fortitude.
“We're aggressive back home,” Schlittler told Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. “We're going to try to get under people's skin. They just picked the wrong guy to do it to — and the wrong team to do it to, as well.”
The 24-year-old tossed eight innings of scoreless baseball and struck out 12 batters in the process. Schlittler became the first pitcher in franchise history to put together a scoreless postseason outing with 10 or more strikeouts and no walks.
Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, who has been sidelined for the entire season, was impressed by Schlittler’s performance and did not quite know how to describe what has made the rookie so effective.
“It’s super impressive,” Cole told MLB.com. “There are different paths to greatness up here, but this guy has come up and delivered right away. He’s got it. I don’t know exactly what it is, it’s hard to define it. But he’s got it. … He’s got an idea of what he wants to do.”
The Yankees will begin their best-of-five series with the Blue Jays in Toronto on Saturday. As it stands, Schlittler would likely start a potential Game 4.
