NEW YORK — The Baby Bombers came out Tuesday night. The Yankees, a team not exactly known for its player development, started five local position players and one local starting pitcher in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series, and those six players carried New York to a victory against the rival Red Sox (NY 9, BOS 0). The Yankees lead the best-of-three series 1-0.
“The local guys were really good tonight,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “One of those really special nights at Yankee Stadium. There was a buzz, and then obviously when it was open late, it turned into a pretty cool night.”
Just like in last year’s Wild Card Series, Cam Schlittler shut down the Red Sox on Tuesday, limiting them to two singles and a walk in 6 ⅓ innings. He threw a career-high 117 pitches, 10 more than last year’s Game 3 masterpiece against Boston. The Red Sox missed 24 of their 59 swings against Schlittler for an outstanding whiff rate of 41%. This is closer as a starting pitcher.
“The work is not done. We have to get another victory tomorrow,” Schlittler said. “But it’s well known that if you want to become a legend, which is obviously the goal, you have to do it in the playoffs. Go out there and get some dominant starts and put the team in a position to win. And that’s kind of the most important thing.”
The Yankees had first-round picks at all four middle positions in Game 1: Austin Wells (2020) at catcher, Anthony Volpe (2019) at second base, George Lombard Jr. (2023) at shortstop and Spencer Jones (2022) in center field. The first three combined singles in the second inning to score the first run of the match against left-hander Payton Tolle.
Ben Rice, another local Yankee, author of 41 home runs, took left-hander Erik Miller deep to center field to take a 2-0 lead in the fifth inning. He added an RBI single in the seventh inning and a grand slam to put the game to bed in the eighth inning. Rice went 4 for 5 with two home runs and 6 RBIs in game one. The 6 RBIs tie a franchise playoff record.
Rice, like Schlittler, was a late-round pick who grew up in Massachusetts, selected in the 12th round in 2021. Schlittler was a seventh-round pick in 2022. The Yankees plucked two Red Sox hitters from their backcourt.
“The connections I had in college with the scouts, the Red Sox, really weren’t part of it,” Schlittler said Monday. “(Northeast Yankees scout) Matty Hyde was kind of my guy. And he had a lot of confidence in me, and he’s the reason I’m a Yankee. He’s someone I credit a lot and still talk to a lot today, and we have a great connection.”
The five home Yankees – Jones, Lombard, Rice, Volpe, Wells – went 11 for 18 with a double, two home runs, a walk, a sacrifice fly and 8 RBIs in the first game. Lombard had three hits and, at 21 years and 119 days, is the second-youngest Yankees player to ever start a postseason game. Only the great Mickey Mantle was younger.
Of course, the Yankees are without their greatest homegrown player. Aaron Judge, New York’s 2013 first-round selection, is not on the Wild Card Series roster as he recovers from a season-ending calf strain. The Yankees just aren’t the same team without Judge and the question going into the postseason was whether everyone would take over.
Rice answered that question with a resounding “yes.” The local Yankees answered that question with a resounding “yes.” Schlittler dominated, Lombard and Volpe were crucial on both sides of the ball, Wells drove in two runs and guided the pitching staff to the shutout victory. This is what it’s supposed to look like. Players grow together in the minors, then excel together in the majors.
“It’s a more confident group,” Boone said of Judge’s absence. “But it’s just one game. Even though tonight was a special night here in the Bronx, and you could feel that energy, it was electric and so many guys played so well, you appreciate it for a minute. But we’ll come back right after tomorrow knowing that we’ll have a chance to close out the game. We’ve got the blinders on, but it’s a confident group to know that we can, if we play our game, we can beat anybody.”
This is, without exaggeration, the best collection of local Yankees since the Core Four in the late 1990s and early 2000s. There was a Robinson Canó here and a Brett Gardner there, but never in the last 20 years have the Yankees featured a primarily local starting lineup and starting pitcher in a postseason game. It seemed like it would never happen.
This group has a very, very, very long way to go before they can be mentioned in the same conversation as the Core Four. Most importantly, as of now, the players drafted and developed by the Yankees have led them to a playoff victory over the Red Sox. They found stars in Schlittler and Rice and, at a minimum, solid complementary players everywhere else. These are all major victories for the organization.
The Yankees will turn to one of their most expensive free agents – Max Fried – in Game 2 on Wednesday. The Red Sox will give the ball to former Yankee Sonny Gray with their season on the line.
Gn sports
