When you have to reach back to Kerry Wood’s 20-strikeout game to put something in perspective, a pitcher just did something incredible.
Yankees rookie Cam Schlittler just did something incredible.
Schlittler’s line that knocked the Boston Red Sox out of the postseason will become the stuff of legend if the Yanks make a deep run: 8.0 innings, 5 hits allowed, 12 strikeouts in shutout baseball.
He’d never gone eight innings in his MLB career before. Never struck out a dozen hitters. Never walked nobody.
Thursday night, he did all three.
The last player to accomplish all three of those feats for the first time was the Chicago Cubs’ Kerry Wood, who did it in his brilliant 20-strikeout performance back in 1998, according to OptaStats.
What makes this different is the stage. Wood’s masterpiece came in May against the Astros. This was October baseball against the Yankees’ biggest rival.
Schlittler hit 100 mph six times in the first inning alone.
There were a couple moments where it looked like he might be done, just based on assumptions about his pitch count. But he was so good that the Yankees just let him roll. The Red Sox couldn’t touch him, and mostly it was the fastball doing the damage, with a little secondary stuff mixed in.
Let’s put it this way: 12 strikeouts isn’t 20 strikeouts. But Wood’s game wasn’t in the playoffs against his biggest rival, either.
Here’s the thing that makes it even better – Schlittler grew up a Red Sox fan.
This was different. And he’ll never forget it.
