Schlittler and Rice torment hometown team as Yankees beat rival Red Sox 9-0 in playoff opener

NEW YORK (AP) — Cam Schlittler pitched another playoff gem against the Boston 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 with a 9-0 victory Tuesday night.

With the Yankees minus star slugger Aaron Judge because of a calf injury, Rice homered twice, doubled and finished with four hits to power the offense. No. 9 batter Austin Wells drove in two runs for New York, and 21-year-old rookie George Lombard Jr. had three hits in his postseason debut.

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.

Schlittler, a clear frontrunner for the AL Cy Young Award after leading the league with a 1.95 ERA, struck out 10 and walked one in 6 1/3 innings. He allowed only two hits while throwing 117 pitches — 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.

The major league high this season was 120 by Dylan Cease for Toronto at Boston in July.

The 25-year-old Schlittler retired 13 straight batters before issuing a two-out walk in the fifth, bringing several chants of “MVP! MVP!” 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.

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.

The Yankees won last year’s Wild Card Series between the longtime rivals on the strength of Schlittler’s outstanding pitching performance in Game 3.

Red Sox RHP Sonny Gray (18-5, 2.72 ERA) makes his seventh postseason start Wednesday night and first since 2023 with Minnesota. Gray, who tied for the major league lead in wins this year, spent a turbulent 1 1/2 seasons with the Yankees from 2017-18. He hasn’t been shy in the past about his dislike for the Bronx Bombers, but he was more diplomatic Tuesday.

“I do know that playing here made me a stronger person, made me a better man, a better husband. Ultimately, it made me a better pitcher,” Gray said. “I learned a lot.”

Gray took a no-hitter into the eighth inning against the Yankees in late June to help finish a four-game sweep at Fenway Park that turned around Boston’s season.

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 against Boston in the Wild Card Series opener last year.

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