It’s been a while.
Since their skid began on June 13th at Fenway Park, the Yankees entered this game with just eight wins in their last 26 games. After a six-game losing streak ended with a 6-4 respite, the team had a dreadful 1-6 road trip that saw them relinquish their lead in the AL East to the red-hot Toronto Blue Jays. On Wednesday, after winning the finale at Citi Field on Sunday and cruising to a 10-3 win last night against Seattle, the Yankees looked to win three in a row for the first time in almost a month with rookie Cam Schlittler on the bump, making his MLB debut.
On a day when the ball was certainly carrying, the Yankees and Mariners combined for six home runs, but when the dust settled, the Yankees walked away with a 9-6 victory. Jazz Chisholm Jr. went deep twice, Jasson Domínguez had three hits, and Aaron Judge outdueled Cal Raleigh, while Schlittler walked away with a win.
Schlittler came out to the mound on a muggy Bronx night. In his first at-bat, he seemingly got squeezed in a six-pitch walk to J.P. Crawford. Not great. After a fly out by Julio Rodriguez, the hard-throwing righty jumped ahead of Raleigh and froze him with 99.6 mph down the pipe for his first major league strikeout.
After Raleigh, he repeatedly blew upper-90s past Randy Arozarena before striking him out to end the inning. Schlittler dialed it up to 100 mph on a 1-2 pitch to Arozarena, the first triple-digit heater by a Yankee since Luis Gil did it last July. In fact, Schlittler threw the six hardest pitches by any Yankee this season in the first inning alone.
Facing a rookie pitcher of their own, the Yankees’ offense went straight to work. Domínguez opened with a single, Judge walked, and Cody Bellinger ripped an RBI single through the right side to get the party started. A rocket RBI single by Giancarlo Stanton and an RBI groundout by Chisholm got three runs home before Logan Evans even recorded two outs in the first inning.
Schlittler went back out there and walked the leadoff batter, but immediately induced a 4-6-3 double play. After an infield single by Dominic Canzone prolonged the inning, he was able to fan Ben Williamson to end the threat.
Anthony Volpe led off the bottom half with a ball that went off the top of the wall in right field, but he was gunned down trying to stretch it into a double. Canzone got a perfect hop and delivered a bullet to get an easy outfield assist. Domínguez would double two batters later, but would be stranded after Judge broke Mickey Mantle’s franchise record for intentional walks in a single season and Bellinger grounded out.
The first real adversity hit Schlittler in the third inning. After striking out Cole Young, Schlittler hung a slider down the pipe that Crawford dunked in the short porch for his seventh home run to cut the deficit to 3-1.
A promising sign? A home run didn’t dissuade him from the strike zone, as he followed it by striking out Rodriguez and getting a soft pop fly out of Raleigh.
The Yankees’ offense picked up the rookie immediately, however, as Jazz Chisholm Jr. absolutely scorched a fastball to Monument Park at 110.9 mph for his 16th home run, making it 4-1 Yankees.
The two sides kept trading blows, as Schlittler started giving up hard contact. A hard lineout by Arozarena preceded an absolute moonshot by Jorge Polanco that somehow wrapped around the foul pole to make it 4-2. As is the case with most rookies (remember Chase Burns a few weeks ago?), he looked a lot more human as the game went on.
Despite not putting up a truly crooked number off of him, the Yankees were getting very good swings off of Evans. Two hard groundouts by Volpe and Oswald Peraza, and a long fly out by Domínguez that just missed the porch, got him through the fourth. Schlittler came back out and delivered a 1-2-3 inning.
The Yankees were hammering the ball all night off of Evans. Despite Judge hitting a scorched fly ball to left field that was hauled in by Arozarena on the track, the Bronx Bombers were able to chase the rookie after a hard single by Bellinger and a great at-bat by Chisholm ended in him smashing a hanging curveball into the short porch for his second home run of the day to make it 6-2.
A single by Goldschmidt ended Evans’ day before the end of the fifth for the first time in his MLB career, but he was thrown out trying to steal two pitches later.
With extra run support, Schlittler came back out there in the sixth. The rookie gave up a leadoff ground-rule double to Rodriguez before bouncing back to strike out Raleigh for the second time. At a clean 75 pitches (note: he threw just 59 in his last Triple-A outing), he was lifted for Jonathan Loáisiga. Unfortunately for Cam, his relief immediately allowed the inherited runner to score on a two-run home run by Arozarena, his 15th of the year, to cut the lead to 6-4.
Overall, it was a rock-solid debut. Schlittler gave up the two homers and walked a pair early, but struck out seven over 5.1 innings while flashing a high-90s heater that nobody on Seattle could catch up to, regardless of location. The swings against him got better deeper into the night, but the 24-year-old threw strikes and trusted his stuff after getting the early lead. A feather in his cap will be the way he handled the second-best hitter in baseball, Cal Raleigh: two strikeouts and a soft pop fly.
After Loáisiga bounced back to get the next two hitters, the offense immediately picked him up. Against Mariners reliever Carlos Vargas, Wells blooped a ground-rule double of his own, got to third on an odd E8 by Rodriguez, and scored on an RBI single by Domínguez, his third hit of the night. One batter later, Judge ripped a two-run double down the left field line to break it open and make it 9-4. Jasson went from first-to-home in a blistering 10.21 seconds, ridiculous speed.
Loáisiga started the seventh and immediately opened the door for Seattle to stay in the game, as Ben Williamson doubled and Cole Young porched his first major-league home run to make it a three-run game. Ugh. Luke Weaver came on and was economical to send it to the seventh-inning stretch.
By this time, rain had moved into the New York area and it would not relent for the rest of the night. Trent Thornton came on for the Mariners and worked around a two-out bullet single by Wells, while Weaver had his best outing since returning with three strikeouts in 1.2 innings, allowing only a hit-by-pitch.
Domínguez worked a walk to get on for the fourth time today, but was thrown out on a strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play. Raleigh is now 3-for-3 in catching Yankees runners in this series, which will aid his defensive value as he tries to convince people that he’s having a better season than Judge.
Devin Williams came on for the ninth against the bottom of the Seattle order. He fanned Canzone on the changeup, got a pinch-hitting Miles Mastrobuoni to fly out, and struck out Young to end it. Ballgame.
Schlittler was credited with the win in his MLB debut. He’s the first Yankee to do so since Jhony Brito on April 2, 2023. Williams earned his 13th save. New York also gained a game on Toronto in the AL East, as the Jays lost to the White Sox earlier on Wednesday; the Yanks trail first by 2.5 games.
The Yankees will go for the sweep tomorrow night and hope to beat a mismatch on paper. Marcus Stroman will take the mound against All-Star Bryan Woo. First pitch is at 7:05 EDT on YES.