Cam Schlittler kept the Red Sox guessing again, and Boston’s attempts to get under his skin went nowhere for the sixth straight time.
The Yankees right-hander opened Game 1 of the 2026 Wild Card Series with another overpowering performance against Boston, extending the same pattern that started in last October’s deciding Game 3 of the Wild Card Series, when he was handed the ball against his childhood team and the “Legend of Cam Schlittler” really took off. By then, Yankees fans already knew about his rise and his velocity. Red Sox fans got a much harsher lesson: Schlittler can be dominant, and he seems to feed off slights.
That became part of the story after that first meeting, when Schlittler posted, "Drinking dat dirty water" after the game and later said he added a little extra to his 12 strikeouts because Boston fans had swarmed his family and crossed a line. Boston fans have pushed back on that version of events, saying they only stirred up a hornet's nest and tweeted at his mom. The idea that it stopped there, though, is slim-to-none.
Since then, the back-and-forth has never really stopped. Boston fans have tried to mock his mentality, including his comments about Fenway crowd noise and his light jabs about checking the standings.
Schlittler has answered the same way every time: by dominating them. Three times stops being a coincidence.
Four times starts to look like a pattern. Five times makes it official.
Then came the sixth chance, with Schlittler carrying a 0.56 ERA against Boston into Game 1 and a strange pregame debate over whether he should throw first or second. The online noise was heavy before first pitch, but once the game started, the conversation changed fast. It turned into another version of the same old question: who cares?
Schlittler looked even sharper this time. After giving up a one-out single to Adley Rutschman on a 10-pitch at-bat in the first inning, he rolled from there.
He didn’t allow his second hit until Wilyer Abreu singled on his 117th pitch in the seventh. Boston never got a runner into scoring position.
The presumptive AL Cy Young winner was relentless, and the more Red Sox fans tried to needle him, the more he seemed to bite back.
There was also a wrinkle in how he attacked Boston. Schlittler went with 30% curveballs for the first five innings, apparently out of nowhere, and got most of them over. It’s fair to wonder if that had anything to do with a certain podcaster calling out the pitch’s underperformance on Twitter in the middle of the summer.
The Red Sox ended up allowing nine runs, their most ever in a postseason shutout loss, per Katie Sharp. Schlittler set the tone, the Yankees’ bats followed, and fellow Massachusetts man Ben Rice was part of the damage.
The clubhouse knows the job isn’t done yet. But as long as Boston keeps poking at Schlittler, he keeps answering the same way - with a performance that leaves the Red Sox with even less to say.
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