Game Recap: 2026 AL Wild Card Series, Game 1 – W – BOS: 0, NYY: 9
The fans in the Bronx were from New York, but the stars were from Massachusetts. And no, they don’t play for the Red Sox.
Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice have been the Yankees’ best players all season. Last night, in front of a raucous Yankee Stadium crowd in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series, they both made history.
Yankees-Red Sox always makes you expect the unexpected. In a playoff game featuring two strong starters, a 9-0 victory was a much larger margin than expected. Schlittler’s numbers? Not so much.
But that’s what makes the Cy Young favorite so spectacular.
Image Courtesy: New York Yankees
For the second time in two seasons, Schlittler shut out the Red Sox in a Wild Card game. He didn’t last eight innings like last time, but he struck out 10 batters through 6 1/3 innings. By using his curveball a career-high 27% of the time, he generated a career-best 24 whiffs and allowed two hits and one walk.
Schlittler struck out batters with three of his four pitches, and all his spin rates were up. Despite averaging 98.6 mph on his four-seam fastball, Schlittler threw a career-high 117 pitches, 10 more than ever before. His curveball fooled the Red Sox and helped him reduce his career ERA against them to 0.47.
Schlittler was on point from the first inning, firing three 101-mph fastballs to leadoff batter Roman Anthony. The next hitter, Adley Rutschman, worked a 10-pitch at-bat off Schlittler, but he struck out the next two batters on seven pitches, energizing the Bronx crowd.
“The natural adrenaline, just the environment and how loud it was. I think it definitely helped, just being able to lean on that,” Schlittler said. Last year, he used Red Sox fans as fuel because they were bullying him online. This year, he embraced positive energy from Yankees fans instead.
“It’s a different feeling going out there and setting the tone in Game 1,” Schlittler said. “With how loud it was with the intros and the first pitch, it was very easy to lock into that. I feed off the crowd, and the Bronx is a great place to play in.”
Schlittler’s curveball was sensational. With it, he generated four strikeouts and eight whiffs, and the Red Sox only put it in play twice. It felt like Schlittler, whose fastball execution has been nearly flawless this season, had been hiding another weapon.
“I’ve had some bumpy starts throughout the season, and it’s a pitch I’ve been able to rely on,” Schlittler said. “Just adding that more into the arsenal and being confident with that pitch and the amount of miss and weak contact I’m getting with that, I feel like I’m in a really good spot with it.”
Offensively, the Yankees attacked Payton Tolle with a vengeance. Before yesterday, the Yankees were 4-for-43 (.093) with three walks and 18 strikeouts against the power lefty, but by the end of yesterday’s second inning, they already had four hits and a run.
With a single to lead off the second inning, George Lombard Jr. became the youngest Yankee ever to record a hit in his postseason debut. Two batters later, Anthony Volpe singled, and with two outs, Austin Wells singled for a 1-0 lead.
Wells deserves a lot of credit for backstopping baseball’s best rotation this season, led by Schlittler. It was the first time since 1957 that the Yankees led the Majors in team ERA. Wells struggled offensively during the regular season, but not last night, finishing 2-for-3 with two RBI.
As Cam Schlittler continued to deal, including 13 straight outs between the first and fifth innings, the Yankees maintained their 1-0 lead. Then, with two outs in the bottom of the fifth, Boston replaced Tolle with Erik Miller, and Rice took him deep.
Rice blasted a hanging sinker 423 feet to dead-center field. As the ball soared into Monument Park, the Stadium crowd exploded, and the Yankees doubled their lead. The Yankees didn’t expect Red Sox manager Chad Tracy to pull Tolle after 83 pitches, especially for another lefty, but Rice stayed focused.
“Understand the pitch package that he’s got, and nobody on base there, so really just trying to get on base and see something up,” Rice said of his approach against Miller.
Manager Aaron Boone added, “For Benny to get into a ball like that and ride it out the front door to give Cam another run to kind of work with felt really big.”
Rice knocked in another run with a bases-loaded single in the seventh inning. After Wells and Spencer Jones singled off lefty Alec Gamboa, Paul Goldschmidt walked, and Rice’s hit made it 3-0. Pinch-hitter Luis García Jr. then grounded into a double play, but Wells crossed home.
Three left-handed hitters got hits off lefties in the seventh inning. With five left-handed relievers in Boston’s bullpen, this was especially important. “The at-bat quality was so good top to bottom,” Rice said. “Communication was really good, everyone talking about how a guy’s stuff looks. That’s what these lefty hitters are capable of.”
In the eighth inning, against Wyatt Olds, Lombard singled, Ryan McMahon walked, and Volpe advanced both runners with a bunt. Next, Jones walked, loading the bases for Wells. After a pitching change, he lifted a sacrifice fly to right field, extending the Yankees’ lead to 5-0.
“This guy, he wants to be behind the plate every single day,” Rice said of Wells. “Over the last couple of months of this season, we know how many games he was catching. He was back there all the time, just grinding his preparation every single day, getting the most out of our pitchers, and really making great strides offensively.”
After Wells’s sacrifice fly, Goldschmidt worked his second walk, giving Rice another at-bat. He worked a full count against Brayan Bello before belting a hanging sinker into the Yankees’ bullpen for a game-breaking grand slam and a 9-0 lead.
“He pummeled pitches all night,” Boone said of Rice. “They went after him a little bit, and he made them pay. Some great left-on-left at-bats. The double to right-center was smoked. The homer out the front door into Monument Park, and then an exclamation point there at the end. Just a big-time night by a great hitter.”
With his grand slam, Rice tied the franchise record as the fifth Yankees player all-time to notch six RBI in a postseason game, joining Robinson Canó in 2011, Hideki Matsui in 2009, Bernie Williams in 1999, and Bobby Richardson in 1960.
“Any time you can come through for the team in a playoff game, it feels pretty awesome,” said Rice, citing consistency as his key to success. “When it starts to get hard, that’s all the more reason to be consistent. You’ve got to lean on your everyday routine, your everyday approach, [and] your preparation.”
Added Jones, who is Rice’s locker neighbor, close friend, and former roommate, “Ben is ‘Mr. Consistency’ on top of being an Ivy League graduate. So, he’s incredibly smart. He doesn’t take himself too seriously. He’s always looking for ways to improve. He’s always looking at film, looking at different things. He’s trying to find anything that can give him an edge.”
Between Jones, Rice, Lombard, Volpe, and Wells, homegrown Yankees went 11-for-18 at the plate last night with eight RBI and seven runs scored. Rice had four hits, and Lombard added three in his first career postseason game. He became the second-youngest player in MLB history to record three hits in his postseason debut.
“Everybody, the whole clubhouse, all the guys, the coaching staff. The comfort and the confidence come from the preparation and the work we put in, so that’s the biggest thing,” Lombard said. “Just be prepared, put in the work, and let things handle themselves on the field.”
The Yankees’ offensive success nearly overshadowed Schlittler’s excellence, another homegrown player who, like Rice, is from Massachusetts. But while Rice grew up rooting for the Yankees, Schlittler was born a Red Sox fan. Yet he had no problem beating up on his favorite childhood team and making history in the process.
“The job is not done,” Schlittler said after yesterday’s win. “We’ve got to get another win tomorrow, but it’s very well-known that if you want to be a legend, which is obviously the goal, you’ve got to do it in the postseason.”
Game 2 is scheduled for tonight at 8 PM (7 PM CDT) (NBC, Peacock). LHP Max Fried (5-5, 2.80 ERA, 104 K) gets the start for the Yankees against former Yankee RHP Sonny Gray (18-5, 2.72 ERA, 149 K), who is expected to retire at the end of this season.
Cover Image Courtesy: New York Yankees
