Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. Look, I don’t hide the fact that I’m a Yankees fan, so usually I’d never lead this newsletter with a story about them two days in a row. But is there any doubt that the biggest news in sports last night was Cam Schlittler?
In today’s SI:AM:
🗽 Schlittler’s incredible start
🐏 Messy Rams blow it
🏆 WNBA Finals picks
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He’s the Schlitt
Cam Schlittler just became a baseball legend.
Staring down a do-or-die Game 3 in the Bronx on Thursday night, the Yankees and Red Sox both sent rookie pitchers to the mound: Schlittler for New York and Connelly Early for Boston. Early pitched well until things unraveled for him in the fourth. Schlittler, though, turned in one of the greatest pitching performances in postseason history.
Schlittler pitched eight scoreless innings with 12 strikeouts and no walks. All five hits he allowed were singles. He didn’t even get to any three-ball counts after the second inning. He was flawless, blowing away hitter after hitter with 100 mph fastballs.
It isn’t an exaggeration to say that Schlittler’s outing is right up there on the list of greatest pitching performances in the Yankees’ long playoff history. Only two starting pitchers in Yankees postseason history had eight strikeouts and no walks while not allowing a run: Schlittler and Roger Clemens in Game 2 of the 2000 World Series. (That was the game where Clemens threw a broken bat at Mike Piazza.)
But you don’t have to limit yourself to just Yankees history to make Schlittler’s outing sound impressive. Schlittler is the only player in MLB playoff history to throw eight scoreless innings with at least 12 strikeouts and no walks. Only one other pitcher in postseason history has had 12-plus strikeouts and no walks in at least eight innings of work: Tom Seaver in Game 1 of the 1973 NLCS. (Seaver, pitching for the Mets, allowed two home runs to the Reds, including a walk-off homer by Johnny Bench.)
Schlittler is also the youngest pitcher to have at least 10 strikeouts and no walks in a playoff game since the Dodgers’ Don Newcombe in Game 1 of the 1949 World Series and just the third player age 24 or younger to pitch eight scoreless innings in a playoff game without allowing a walk (joining 21-year-old Bret Saberhagen for the Royals in Game 7 of the 1985 World Series and 24-year-old Dizzy Dean for the Cardinals in Game 7 of the 1934 World Series).
If you hadn’t heard of Schlittler before last night, I can’t blame you. He’s a rookie who began this season in Double A before the Yankees’ serious need for starting pitcher help (between season-ending injuries to Gerrit Cole and Clarke Schmidt and the ineffectiveness of Marcus Stroman and Carlos Carrasco) accelerated his promotion to the majors. Schlittler wasn’t even a top prospect. At the time of his big league debut in July, MLB.com ranked him as the No. 10 prospect in the Yankees’ system. Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs was higher on Schlittler, but still only ranked him fifth in the system in his January survey of New York prospects. Longenhagen pegged Schlittler’s future value at a 45 on the 20–80 scouting scale (where 50 is average). That translates to a projected big league role as a No. 5 starter.
Those projections might seem foolish in hindsight, but Schlittler is truly a different pitcher now than he was when he made his pro debut in 2023 as a seventh-round pick out of Northeastern University in Boston. (Oh yeah, Schlittler is a Boston-area native who grew up rooting for the Red Sox and just became a Yankees legend.) In his first season in the minors, Schlittler’s four-seam fastball averaged 90.0 mph and peaked at 93.7 mph (in games tracked by Statcast). In 14 regular-season starts in the majors this year, it averaged 98.0 mph and peaked at 100.6 mph. Last night, he threw the fastest pitch of his life (100.8 mph) and threw 11 pitches that reached triple digits on the radar gun.
“He’s always had this growth mindset where he never feels like he’s arrived,” Yankees scout Matt Hyde told The Athletic. “He’s always willing to find out what it takes to be better.”
It’s tempting to look at Schlittler’s dominant outing and dream of an unhittable 2026 Yankees rotation that features him, Cole, Max Fried, Carlos Rodón and reigning Rookie of the Year Luis Gil. Before everyone gets too far ahead of themselves, there are reasons to be cautious about Schlittler’s future even after his heroic start against Boston. He walks too many hitters (more than 10% of the hitters he faced in the regular season) and has lackluster secondary pitches. But those are concerns for another day. For now, the Yankees just need him to repeat his performance against the Red Sox four days from now against the Blue Jays.
The best of Sports Illustrated
- Cam Schlittler grew up a Red Sox fan—then shut them down to send the Yankees to the ALDS, writes Stephanie Apstein.
- Costly mistakes and a lack of creativity doomed the Rams on Thursday, raising real questions about their contender status, argues Gilbert Manzano.
- Conor Orr reveals his quarter-season NFL awards ballot, including MVP and Offensive Player of the Year picks.
- Who’s taking home the 2025 WNBA title? SI’s experts make their picks and bold predictions.
- The WNBA playoffs are exposing the league’s officiating flaws—and Emma Baccellieri explains why the fix is obvious.
- Sports Illustrated’s men’s college basketball preseason Top 25 countdown rolls on with No. 21 entering a pivotal season.
The top five…
… things I saw yesterday:
5. A leaping catch by Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner.
4. Dillon Dingler’s go-ahead homer for the Tigers.
3. Giancarlo Stanton’s funny postgame reaction to his mental mistake early in the Yankees’ win.
2. Two massive plays by the 49ers’ defensive line. First, with just over a minute to play in the fourth quarter, San Francisco forced a Kyren Williams fumble near the goal line with the Rams trailing 23–20. Los Angeles was able to get the ball back and kick a field goal to force overtime, though, and the Niners won the game in OT by stopping the Rams on a fourth-and-1.
1. Yankees third baseman Ryan McMahon’s stunning catch, where he flipped over the railing of the Red Sox dugout.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | The Numbers Behind Cam Schlittler’s Historic Outing.
