A breakdown of Cam Schittler's dynamic wild card start

Eighteen months ago, nobody would have imagined Cam Schlittler being here.

At the start of the 2024 season, he was not in the Yankees’ top 30 prospects according to any major site and was coming off his first professional season where he only threw 46 innings due to a bicep injury.

A year and a half later, he added five ticks to his fastball, made the Majors, and was handed the ball to face the Boston Red Sox in a win-or-go-home Game Three of the American League Wild Card Series.

Schlittler grew up forty minutes outside of Boston in Wapole. He was born to a family of Red Sox fans, but when asked about how it felt to pitch against his former team, all he had to say was “I’m happy their season’s done”.

He joined very rare company with his performance. He became the fourth rookie to ever strike out twelve or more in a playoff game, became the eighteenth starter ever to strike out twelve and give up no runs in a playoff game, and became the first pitcher ever to go eight innings, give up no runs, strike out twelve, and issue no walks in one playoff game.

He also set the record for the highest average pitch velocity by a starter in any game in the StatCast era, averaging 96.4 MPH on his pitches.

It is very obvious that this was an all-time good performance from Schlittler. However, what exactly made him so untouchable in his playoff debut?

Early into the game, he set the tone for the night right away. In the first inning, every four-seamer or sinker he threw was at least 98.7 MPH.

He made quick work of Jarren Duran and Trevor Story before having notorious Yankee-killer Alex Bregman step up.

His first pitch was his third hardest of the night, a fastball that reached 100.7 on the gun. Bregman fouled off a curveball and watched a cutter miss high before Schlittler threw this on the 1-2.

I don’t think I need to do much to convince you that a backdoor sinker at 100.1 MPH isn’t a pitch you’re going to hit.

In the second, Schlittler kept the energy and velocity high.

Masataka Yoshida sent a soft liner into the outfield to start the inning and get Boston their first baserunner, but Schlittler quickly set Ceddanne Rafaela down on strikes.

Nate Lowe must have done something to Schlittler in a previous life, because the pitches he threw to him were absolutely unhittable.

Schlittler worked his fastball and cutter to get ahead 1-2, before throwing what was his most impressive pitch of the night, specs-wise.

He broke out a 100.3 MPH four-seamer right under the hands that had a 20-inch induced vertical break, which is the break the pitch would have if it were not affected by gravity. An elite IVB is around 17”, so 20” is absolutely incredible.

While that fastball did miss inside, it set up an unfair pitch on the 2-2.

Schlittler frontdoored a sinker hit 100.7 MPH, his second-hardest pitch of the night. When he is able to paint that pitch at the knees, good luck.

While the 1-2 fastball was his most impressive pitch of the night in terms of the specs of the pitch, the location of the sinker made it his best overall pitch of the start.

The third was Schlittler’s best inning of the night.

He threw a nice 2-1 curveball to Wilyer Abreu to get him to pop out to the infield, then struck out Romy Gonzalez and Duran to end the inning in an instant.

His at-bat against Duran was phenomenal. He threw him a fastball and a curveball that were both called strikes to start the at-bat, threw his hardest pitch of the night at 100.8 that Duran barely managed to foul off, then dropped this cutter at the bottom of the zone to get Duran swinging.

The fourth was Schlittler’s first without a strikeout, but he did a good job of working around a two-out single from Yoshida to throw up another zero.

The Yankee offense woke up in the bottom of the fourth, giving him a 4-0 lead to work with.

Lowe got a bit of revenge by leading the inning off with a single, Schlittler struck out the next two, but then Romy Gonzalez had the best swing of the night for Boston, a 108.2 MPH, 12-degree launch angle line drive into right field to give the Red Sox their first runner in scoring position to that point.

Duran came up with a chance to turn the tide of the game, but Schlittler trusted his best pitch.

Three fastballs later, Duran was going back to the dugout after whiffing on a 99.9 MPH heater to end the frame.

Story looped a single to open the sixth, but after a groundout and a strikeout, Schlittler set down Rafaela with an overpowering high fastball to give himself ten strikeouts on the night.

Many, including myself, thought this would be his last pitch of the night. Thankfully for the Yankees, Aaron Boone didn’t.

Schlittler went back out for the seventh and made quick work of the Red Sox.

Lowe and Carlos Narvaez hit weak flyouts before an exclamation mark pitch from Schlittler, a 98.6 MPH challenge fastball blown by Abreu to end the frame.

Schlittler had no doubts about coming back out for an eighth inning. He went straight down the tunnel, only giving Boone a fist bump on the way down.

To open the inning, on pitch number 105, he blew a 97.8 MPH, 18” IVB fastball by Gonzalez for his twelfth and final strikeout of the night.

Ryan McMahon dove into the dugout for an incredible second out, and Schlittler’s final pitch of the night came in at 98.4, a sinker that Story grounded to shortstop for the final out.

His final line: eight innings, zero runs, five hits, twelve strikeouts, zero walks. As mentioned above, he set a StatCast era record with an average pitch velocity of 96.4, and 75 of his 107 pitches were strikes.

Schlittler’s debut was among the best in Postseason baseball’s long, storied history.

It remains to be seen if he will get the ball again, with the Yankees facing elimination against the Blue Jays, but even if he does not, it was a phenomenal building point for the man who will be the future of the Yankees’ rotation.

Edison Pellumbi is a first-year student studying broadcast journalism. To contact him, email him at ejp5889@psu.edu.