Cam Schlittler didn’t just answer the critics Monday night - he made it clear he had heard them.
The Yankees starter turned in the kind of outing that looks a lot bigger than the box score alone: eight strikeouts over eight innings in New York’s 5-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays. Afterward, Schlittler said the response to his rough start against the Detroit Tigers on June 30 stuck with him.
“Yeah, I mean, again -- last week was tough, right? They want to say that there's f----ing regression because I had one bad outing,” Schlittler explained, per Garrett Stepien of SNY. “So, again, it was personal to go out there and just have a dominant start and put this team in the right position.”
That June 30 outing was a tough one to shake. Schlittler gave up six runs in four innings in a 9-3 loss to Detroit, and the Yankees were already in a rough stretch when he took the ball Monday. New York had dropped nine of its last 10 and 12 of its previous 15, so the timing of a shutdown performance couldn’t have been better.
“It’s frustrating, right? You want to stop the bleeding,” Schlittler said about the Yankees' latest struggles.
“I just wasn't able to do that. So, I feel like I dedicated myself this week to just kind of being more locked in and, again, trying to go out there and put the team in a position to win against the first-place team in our division is good.
So, I think we played great ball tonight, and we've got three more to go.”
Aaron Boone wasn’t caught off guard by the rebound. The Yankees manager said Schlittler’s outing was exactly the kind of response he expected after the Tigers game.
“It was huge,” Boone said about Schlittler's performance on Monday. “You know, I'm not surprised.
I'm not surprised he bounced back from arguably his toughest outing of his young career so far against the Tigers. So, he was great.
He was dominant. He was efficient and, yeah, great way to get the road trip started.”
The win left the 50-40 Yankees still chasing the 52-36 Rays in the American League East, with Tampa Bay hosting New York three more times this week.
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