From Byron Kerr:
Saturday’s game was billed as a matchup of Yankees All-Star right-hander Cam Schlittler and his 2.01 ERA against the high-powered Nationals offense, which entered the day second in the Majors in homers to New York.
The Yankees’ game plan this weekend has focused on a Nationals offense that loves hunting fastballs. Enter Schlittler, who has made a name for himself by employing a lethal combination of fastballs. And after the Nationals appeared to have the upper hand early, Schlittler settled down to pitch 6 2/3 innings before the Yankees rallied late to win for the second straight game, 4-2.
As I noted during the game, Schlittler seemed to think that his fastballs were going to be too much for a Nationals team that destroys high 90s fastballs, and when that turned out not to be the case, he was all discombobulated. This led to him tying his season high in walks allowed.
To his credit, he EVENTUALLY recovered, and almost went seven (had James Wood not been the third batter in the 7th, he would have totally pitched seven innings) while allowing only two runs. Good job by him to eventually recover, but he should not have been so out of it to begin with. That was some youthful arrogance, but hey, again, he adjusted and held them to two runs.
That should have been enough for a win for Schlittler, but the Yankees couldn’t do anything against Mikes fucking Mikolas.
Luckily, though, for the second night in a row, they came through with big home runs late, with Trent Grisham getting the featured image as his two-run blast gave the Yankees the lead (that followed a solo shot by Ryan McMahon two batters earlier, and a solo shot by Goldy one batter later).
David Bednar is PROBABLY off limits today, so the Yankees better just score a lot o’runs, as Will Warren is bound to suck, and Camilo Doval will probably pitch in this one.
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