The New York Yankees needed length from Cam Schlittler in the opener of Sunday’s doubleheader against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Instead, they got a frustrating afternoon that ended his day well before it should have.
Schlittler, who sat out the All-Star Game before making his return to the mound, ran into a Dodgers lineup that fouled off pitch after pitch and refused to give in. New York fell 8-2 in the first game of the doubleheader, with Schlittler unable to escape the fifth inning.
Afterward, he didn’t sugarcoat how the outing felt.
Schlittler Addresses the Short Start
GettyCam Schlittler of the New York Yankees.
Schlittler threw 98 pitches across just 4 1/3 innings, racking up a career-high 20 swings-and-misses and eight strikeouts along the way. The problem wasn’t stuff. It was length, as the Dodgers fouled off 27 pitches, including 16 with two strikes, and turned nearly every at-bat into a grind.
“As a starter, [if] you can’t get through five, that’s not a good sign,” Schlittler said. “I think that’s the most frustrating part. I feel like the miss was there, the strikeouts are good, but it doesn’t matter if you can’t put a competitive outing together. They made me battle.”
The swing-and-miss numbers looked impressive, but Schlittler was not interested in treating them as a consolation prize. He judged the start by how long he stayed on the mound, and against a Dodgers lineup that refused to give away at-bats, he came up short.
A Strong Start That Fell Apart for the Yankees
Schlittler opened the game by striking out the side in the first inning on just 17 pitches, including whiffs on Shohei Ohtani, Andy Pages, and Freddie Freeman with pitches touching the upper 90s and beyond. It looked like the start of a dominant outing.
The second inning told a different story. A 27-pitch frame stretched things out. A popup dropped between two Yankees outfielders in the sun, extending an inning that should have ended quickly. Ohtani gave the Dodgers the lead for good in the third with an RBI double. Freeman followed with another run-scoring hit before the inning wrapped up.
Schlittler struck out three more batters in the fourth. He hit a batter to lead off the fifth. That runner eventually scored, ending Schlittler’s outing at a 3-1 deficit.
Manager and Catcher React to the Outing
Manager Aaron Boone of the New York Yankees.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone defended Schlittler’s stuff after the game, describing the outing as death by a thousand cuts rather than a performance issue. He pointed to the volume of deep counts and extended at-bats as the reason Schlittler couldn’t work deeper into the game despite missing plenty of bats.
Catcher Ali Sanchez offered a simpler explanation for the Dodgers’ approach, crediting their ability to put competitive swings on nearly every pitch they saw.
Final Word for the Yankees
Cam Schlittler had the swing-and-miss stuff to dominate Sunday. He just didn’t have the efficiency to survive a Dodgers lineup built to grind out at-bats.
The strikeout numbers were encouraging. The final line wasn’t. For a Yankees rotation that needs length from its top arms, the first of Sunday’s two outings was a step back at the wrong time.
Yankees’ Cam Schlittler Drops Blunt Quote After Rough Start vs Dodgers