NEW YORK - As far as worst-case scenarios go, the Red Sox were dealt a pretty powerful one in Game 1 of their best-of-three Wild Card Series at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday.
For that, they can primarily thank Cam Schlittler.
The soon-to-be American League Cy Young winner did what he has done pretty much every time he faces off with his former hometown team: dominate. This time, it came in the form of 6 1/3 innings, during which he allowed just two hits and not a single run, striking out 10 and walking just one.
The end result: A demoralizing 9-0 loss to the Yankees for the Red Sox.
Throwing a career-high 117 pitches, Schlittler got 24 whiffs (also a career-best) while leaving Red Sox hitters in a familiar helpless spot. In 39 innings against the Red Sox, he has now allowed just two earned runs.
It was shades of the eight shutout innings he threw the last time he went up against the Red Sox in a Wild Card showdown, in last season's Game 3.
"I think they learned their lesson last year," said Schlittler of the fans back in his home state of Massachusetts. "Again, a lot of my buddies are here from home. I haven't seen them in seven months. It's special that they're here supporting me. I know they had a great time tonight regardless. They're still Red Sox fans. But at the end of the day, they support me, and I think they know better than to try and mess around with it.
Adding to the Red Sox's frustration was that they were still very much in the game, trailing by one run heading into the bottom of the fifth inning, with starter Payton Tolle holding the Yankees to just one run over his 4 2/3 innings despite not having his best stuff. But two things happened that sent the visitors careening down the wrong road heading into the later innings.
First, Chad Tracy's decision to replace Tolle with Erik Miller to face Ben Rice with two outs in the fifth, despite the starter tossing just 83 pitches, backfired in a big way. Rice jumped all over a 96.8 sinker and launched it 423 feet over the center field fence, giving the Yankees a suddenly seemingly insurmountable lead.
Not helping matters was the image of Roman Anthony being pinch-hit for with Andruw Monasterio to lead off the sixth inning. It was announced after the game that the designated hitter had re-aggravated the same hand injury that sidelined him for much of the season.
"There were a couple of check swings in each of the at-bats that bothered it," said Tracy, who noted that there was no determination of the injury's severity immediately after the game. "And swinging through the last second at-bat, swinging through, like, after the check swings, he still felt discomfort on the swings."
Leading up to his exit, Anthony hadn't been part of the solution, striking out in both of his plate appearances. He wasn't alone, as the Red Sox didn't get a single batter into scoring position all night until Trevor Story's two-out double in the eighth inning. It continued a disturbing trend for a Red Sox offense that scored the fewest runs in baseball throughout the final month of the regular season.
The Yankees would put the nail in the Red Sox's Game 1 coffin in the seventh inning, scoring two runs against reliever Alec Gamboa, who didn't record an out and gave up three hits and a walk. And topping it all off: Rice's second homer of the game in the eighth off Brayan Bello ... a grand slam. It was the ultimate punctuation for a forgettable night for the Sox and their manager.
It doesn't bode well for the Red Sox, considering the home team has won all nine Wild Card series after winning the first game since the current format was implemented.
"It's a challenge," said Tracy of needing to win the next two in the Bronx to keep the Red Sox's season going. "That's the, I guess, holistically, the challenge of a three-game series. That's why Tolle was out there. That's why Schlittler was out there trying really hard to get Game 1. You don't. Now you have to win two in a row, so you've got to be aggressive and try to win as many moments as you can because we've got to win two games in a row now to keep the season alive."
