<\/p>\n
New York Yankees starting pitcher Cam Schlittler throws to the Boston Red Sox during the first inning in Game 1 of baseball’s American League Wild Card Series, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, in New York.<\/p>\n
Frank Franklin II\/AP Photo\/Frank Franklin II<\/p>\n
New York Yankees’ Ben Rice connects for a grand slam off Boston Red Sox pitcher Brayan Bello during the eighth inning in Game 1 of baseball’s American League Wild Card Series, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, in New York.<\/p>\n
Frank Franklin II\/AP Photo\/Frank Franklin II<\/p>\n
Boston Red Sox manager Chad Tracy, center, takes the ball from relief pitcher Erik Miller, right, while going to the bullpen against the New York Yankees during the sixth inning in Game 1 of baseball’s American League Wild Card Series, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, in New York.<\/p>\n
Frank Franklin II\/AP Photo\/Frank Franklin II<\/p>\n
New York Yankees’ Ben Rice watches his ballo after hitting a solo home run off Boston Red Sox pitcher Erik Miller during the fifth inning in Game 1 of baseball’s American League Wild Card Series, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, in New York.<\/p>\n
Yuki Iwamura\/AP Photo\/Yuki Iwamura<\/p>\n
New York Yankees second baseman Anthony Volpe, left, and shortstop George Lombard Jr. react after turning a double play to end the top of the seventh inning against the Boston Red Sox in Game 1 of baseball’s American League Wild Card Series, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, in New York.<\/p>\n
Yuki Iwamura\/AP Photo\/Yuki Iwamura<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Back in Boston, they’re the two that got away.<\/p>\n
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Cam Schlittler pitched another playoff gem against the Red Sox, and Ben Rice also burned their hometown team with a late grand slam and six RBIs as the New York Yankees opened this Wild Card Series rematch by romping to a 9-0 victory Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
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With the Yankees minus star slugger Aaron Judge because of a calf injury, Rice homered twice, doubled and had four hits to power the offense. Schlittler, a clear frontrunner for the AL Cy Young Award, struck out 10 in a dominant performance reminiscent of the one that ended Boston’s season last year.<\/p>\n
Rice and Schlittler were both raised among Red Sox fans in Massachusetts and went to college in New England before getting plucked by the Yankees out of Boston’s backyard in baseball’s amateur draft.<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty remarkable,\u201d New York manager Aaron Boone said. \u201cObviously that\u2019s been a storyline for a couple of years now. For them to go out and have that kind of night together to start this postseason, pretty amazing and kind of hard to grasp a little bit, frankly, but I\u2019m certainly glad we have those two.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rice was actually a Yankees fan while growing up outside Boston.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWearing the Yankees jersey to the first-grade picture day probably got some weird looks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely adds, like, a cool little layer to it, and for Cam, too. It\u2019s always fun playing against them. And having a solid game against them is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
No. 9 batter Austin Wells drove in two runs and 21-year-old rookie George Lombard Jr. had three hits for New York in his postseason debut.<\/p>\n
Schlittler, who led the American League with a 1.95 ERA, allowed only two singles and one walk in 6 1\/3 innings without letting a runner reach second base. He threw 117 pitches \u2014 10 more than his previous career high and most by a Yankees postseason starter since Hall of Fame lefty CC Sabathia threw 121 in the 2012 AL Division Series against Baltimore.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI got a little greedy,\u201d Boone said.<\/p>\n
The major league high this season was 120 by Dylan Cease for Toronto at Boston in July.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old Schlittler retired 13 straight batters before a two-out walk in the fifth, bringing several chants of \u201cMVP! MVP!\u201d from the sellout crowd of 48,437 in the Bronx. He walked off the mound to a standing ovation after yielding a one-out single in the seventh, and Paul Blackburn promptly got Ceddanne Rafaela to ground into an inning-ending double play that preserved a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
New York outhit Boston 12-3 in the fifth postseason shutout since 2002 for the Yankees, who led the majors in ERA this year for the first time since 1957.<\/p>\n
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Game 2 in the best-of-three series at Yankee Stadium is Wednesday night, when a victory would send New York into a best-of-five Division Series against AL East champion Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n
Going into this postseason, Game 1 winners had advanced 15 times in the 16 best-of-three Wild Card Series since the format was implemented in 2022. The only exception was the Red Sox last year.<\/p>\n
Boston and New York have split six previous postseason matchups. The Yankees took last year\u2019s Wild Card Series between the longtime rivals on the strength of Schlittler\u2019s dominant performance in Game 3, when the rookie struck out 12 over eight innings in a 4-0 win.<\/p>\n
Schlittler has said he received on-line abuse before some of his outings against Boston. He\u2019s used it as motivation.<\/p>\n
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The right-hander is 4-1 with a 0.47 ERA and 49 strikeouts in six career starts against the Red Sox \u2014 including the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s very well known that if you want to be a legend, which is obviously the goal, you\u2019ve got to do it in the postseason,\u201d Schlittler said.<\/p>\n
Rice gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead with a 423-foot solo homer into Monument Park in straightaway center field on the third pitch from left-handed reliever Erik Miller, who replaced Payton Tolle with two outs in the fifth after the rookie starter threw 83 pitches.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old Rice added a run-scoring single with the bases loaded in the seventh and a grand slam to right-center that capped a five-run eighth.<\/p>\n
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The 16th slam in Yankees postseason history gave Rice six RBIs, matching the franchise record for a postseason game accomplished by four other players.<\/p>\n
Rice also homered in Game 2 of last year’s Wild Card Series. He led New York with 41 homers, 97 RBIs and an .897 OPS this year in his third major league season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll remember getting a W versus the Red Sox. There\u2019s nothing better than that,\u201d Rice said. \u201cI\u2019ll remember Cam going out there and just being lights out, like he always is. I\u2019ll remember the atmosphere. It was just an awesome night. Great way to kick off the series.\u201d<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Red Sox RHP Sonny Gray (18-5, 2.72 ERA) faces one of his former teams Wednesday night when he makes his seventh postseason start and first since 2023 with Minnesota.<\/p>\n
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LHP Max Fried (5-5, 2.80 ERA) pitches for New York. The three-time All-Star was limited to 20 starts this season because of two stints on the injured list with a bruised left elbow. He threw 6 1\/3 scoreless innings in the Wild Card Series opener last year.<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Yankees starting pitcher Cam Schlittler throws to the Boston Red Sox during the first inning in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[1797,106,1217,5,731,141,32131,20455,1396,76,1090,2107,108,1690,9500,9501,5808,3973,9496,9497,83947,22857,22858,22859,1587,99506],"class_list":["post-817895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-aaron-boone","tag-aaron-judge","tag-austin-wells","tag-baseball","tag-ben-rice","tag-boston","tag-c-c-sabathia","tag-cam-schlittler","tag-ceddanne-rafaela","tag-dylan-cease","tag-erik-miller","tag-george-lombard-jr","tag-max-fried","tag-new-york","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-paul-blackburn","tag-payton-tolle","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40791-ap-massachusetts-sports-only","tag-product-40800-ap-new-jersey-sports-only","tag-product-40802-ap-new-york-city-sports-only","tag-product-40803-ap-new-york-state-sports-only","tag-sonny-gray","tag-yankees-red-sox-score-schlittler-rice"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}