Cam Schlittler emerged as a possible mainstay for the New York Yankees during the final two months of the regular season when he replaced an injured Clarke Schmidt.
His star received a boost when he tossed eight innings and 12 strikeouts in a shutout over the Boston Red Sox in Game 3 of the wild-card series.
Schlittler’s first full season is off to a strong start, and the 25-year-old makes his home debut Tuesday night when the Yankees open a three-game series against the Athletics.
The Yankees are off to a 7-2 start for the second time in three seasons. Schlittler’s contributions were 11 2/3 scoreless innings against the San Francisco Giants and Seattle Mariners.
Schlittler (2-0, 0.00 ERA) is still being fully built up after missing some time in spring training with a minor back injury and has thrown 68 and 79 pitches, respectively, in his first two outings. In San Francisco, he allowed one hit and struck out eight in a 3-0 win on March 27. On Wednesday in Seattle, the right-hander permitted two hits and struck out seven in 6 1/3 innings of a 5-3 win.
He has yet to issue a walk against 38 batters faced.
“It’s exciting to see how dominant his stuff is, just filling up the strike zone,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He got some early outs and that allowed him to get pretty deep into the game with a pitch count. He’s throwing the ball incredibly well. He set the tone for us.”
Schlittler is the first Yankee to begin a season by turning in consecutive starts of at least five scoreless innings and seven strikeouts.
Schlittler is facing the A’s for the first time after the Yankees produced their worst pitching performances so far in a pair of games that lasted for a combined seven hours and 13 minutes.
The Yankees survived a short outing by Ryan Weathers and some struggles by their bullpen when they hung on for a 9-7 victory over the Miami Marlins on Saturday. They allowed four runs in the eighth inning of their 7-6 loss a day later.
The A’s took two of three at home from the Houston Astros and have won three of five after getting off to a 0-4 start.
The A’s scored 23 runs in their two wins and earned a 12-10 win on Sunday when Brent Rooker hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the seventh inning and a game-ending three-run homer in the 10th.
Rooker homered after starting the season 4-for-30 with 14 strikeouts. Nick Kurtz also had his first multi-hit game after starting the season 2-for-24 with 13 strikeouts.
“It was good to finally do something to help us win or do something good in any fashion,” Rooker said after the A’s finished with 16 hits and went 7-for-17 with runners in scoring position. “I’m proud of our guys (Sunday) as a whole. We saw some good arms, and they put together good at-bats and made some unbelievable plays, yet we were able to battle through all that.”
Aaron Civale (1-0, 3.60), who is on his sixth team since spending five seasons with the Cleveland Guardians, starts for the A’s.
Civale made his debut for the A’s last Tuesday when he allowed two runs on four hits in five innings while getting nine groundball outs in a 5-2 win at Atlanta.
The right-hander is 1-5 with a 6.35 ERA in seven career regular-season starts against the Yankees, who hit .299 in those games. He last faced them on March 30, 2025, for Milwaukee when he allowed three homers and five runs in three innings.
–Field Level Media
