Yankees Dominate Red Sox 9-0 in Wild-Card Opener Behind Schlittler’s Curveball Masterclass and Rice’s Historic Night

NEW YORK — The New York Yankees opened their American League wild-card series Tuesday with a 9-0 shutout of the Boston Red Sox, powered by a pitching performance built on an almost unprecedented reliance on a breaking ball and a historic offensive explosion from a designated hitter who has carried the lineup all season.

Right-hander Cam Schlittler delivered 6⅓ scoreless innings at Yankee Stadium, allowing two hits and one walk while striking out 10. But the defining tactical story of his outing was his curveball. A pitch he deployed only 9.8% of the time during the regular season became the centerpiece of his game plan against Boston, jumping to a 27% usage rate. The adjustment generated a 57% whiff rate on the offering, contributing to a career-high 24 swing-and-misses overall. Schlittler paired the heavy curveball usage with three distinct fastballs — a four-seam, cutter, and sinker — elevated at the top of the strike zone to constantly disrupt the Red Sox hitters’ eye levels.

The 25-year-old threw 117 pitches, the highest total for a Yankees pitcher in a postseason game since CC Sabathia logged consecutive 120-pitch starts during the 2012 playoffs. Manager Aaron Boone pulled Schlittler with one out in the seventh inning after a single to Wilyer Abreu, drawing a standing ovation from the Bronx crowd. Schlittler enters the postseason as the heavy favorite for the American League Cy Young Award following a rookie campaign where he posted a 1.95 ERA with 239 strikeouts over 193⅔ innings.

His dominance over Boston specifically borders on historical anomaly. In six career regular-season and postseason starts against the Red Sox, Schlittler has allowed exactly two earned runs across 38⅔ innings, maintaining a 0.47 ERA with 49 strikeouts. The Massachusetts native attended Northeastern University before being selected in the seventh round of the MLB draft, a pedigree that makes his current command of baseball’s most intense rivalry particularly unusual.

While Schlittler neutralized a Boston offense that scored the fewest runs in Major League Baseball during September, Ben Rice dismantled the Red Sox pitching staff. The Dartmouth College product finished 4-for-5 with two home runs, including a grand slam, and six RBIs. His performance made him the sixth player in major league history and the first Yankee to record at least four hits and six RBIs in a single postseason game. The six RBIs tied the franchise record for a playoff contest.

Rice’s production is critical context for a Yankees roster operating without Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton for the majority of 2026. The 27-year-old finished the regular season with 41 home runs — eight more than his combined total from his first two major league campaigns — alongside an .897 OPS. Drafted out of the Ivy League in the 12th round a year after Schlittler entered the organization, Rice has evolved into a primary run producer.

His first home run Tuesday came in the fifth inning off left-handed reliever Erik Miller. Red Sox manager Chad Tracy brought Miller into the game with two outs to replace starter Payton Tolle after 83 pitches. Miller hung a sinker over the middle of the plate, and Rice drove it into Monument Park. He added an RBI single in the seventh and capped the scoring with an eighth-inning grand slam off Brayan Bello.

The 9-0 margin represents the Yankees’ largest shutout victory in the postseason since the 1960 World Series. Shortstop George Lombard Jr. contributed a 3-for-4 performance in his playoff debut, while catcher Austin Wells provided the game’s first run with a second-inning RBI single.

The Yankees lead the best-of-three wild-card series 1-0. Game 2 is scheduled for Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.