From Bryan Hoch:
Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice spent their early years surrounded by everything Red Sox, only to land on the other side of baseball’s most storied rivalry. Back under the postseason spotlight, the Massachusetts duo delivered, fracturing a few more New England hearts in the process.
Schlittler struck out 10 over 6 1/3 scoreless innings and Rice launched two homers, including a grand slam, as part of a six-RBI performance. The Yankees rolled to a 9-0 victory over Boston in Tuesday’s Game 1 of the American League Wild Card Series at Yankee Stadium.
“The job’s not done; we’ve got to get another win tomorrow,” Schlittler said. “But it’s very well-known that if you want to be a legend, which is obviously the goal, you’ve got to do it in the postseason.”
In the history of the best-of-three Wild Card Series, teams taking a 1-0 lead have gone on to win the series 21 of 24 times (88%), including 17 two-game sweeps. Home teams have won all nine series in which they have gone ahead 1-0, including eight sweeps.
“It’s one win, so we’ve got the blinders on,” manager Aaron Boone said. “But it’s a confident group, knowing that if we play our game, we can beat anyone.”
I mean, come the heck on, that was a bad ass fucking win.
Schlittler was great, Paul Blackburn did Paul Blackburn things, and the Yankees actually beat up on the back end of the Boston bullpen for actual INSURANCE RUNS! Wow!
There have been only two shutouts in Yankee/Red Sox postseason history, and they’ve both occurred in games started by Cam Schlittler.
The announcers kept making a big deal about how the Red Sox at least didn’t use their top relievers, and that the Yankees had to use Blackburn and get Bednar and Headrick up, and, like, I mean, sure, that’s SOMEthing, but in a best of three, that doesn’t seem like a whole lot.
Time for Max Fried to earn that huge contract in Game 2!
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Don’t forget though, the Red Sox have the secret weapon of Tolle being fun and nice and a great guy. He’s got a dad mustache even though he’s in his 20s! How fun! Did we mention how fun Tolle is?
It often felt like the announcers were trying to poke Tolle with a stick and say, “Come on, do something kooky!”
It seems The announcers are given a script and they follow it even if the facts on the ground are exactly the opposite of the script they are reading.
Tonight it’s gonna be how awesome Rice is even as he goes 0-for-4 with 3 Ks. How rice stepped up in judges absence, etc.
Michael King was awesome yesterday too. We should try to trade for that guy 🙂