Updated

Updated · The Boston Globe · Sep 30

Red Sox, Yankees Open 3-Game AL Wild Card Series as Tolle Faces Cy Young Favorite Schlittler

Updated

Updated · The Boston Globe · Sep 30

Red Sox, Yankees Open 3-Game AL Wild Card Series as Tolle Faces Cy Young Favorite Schlittler

Q: Can rookie Payton Tolle outduel Cam Schlittler at Yankee Stadium, or will Game 1 expose which regular-season dominance was real?

Tolle can absolutely outduel Schlittler, but the safer read is that Game 1 is more likely to confirm both pitchers are real than to expose one as a mirage. The evidence for Tolle is strong. In his rookie season he posted a 3.03 ERA with 171 strikeouts in 148 2/3 innings, and he was especially sharp against New York: one run, four hits and 18 strikeouts over 13 innings in two starts. Boston also believes his temperament travels well. Chad Tracy’s confidence is rooted less in age than in Tolle’s ability to stay loose, and Tolle himself says he pitches better when relaxed rather than trying to force intensity. Still, Schlittler enters with the stronger overall case. He led the AL with a 1.95 ERA, struck out 239, dominated Boston to a 0.74 ERA in four regular-season starts, and already owns an October statement against the Red Sox after his eight shutout innings with 12 strikeouts in last year’s Wild Card clincher. At Yankee Stadium, with home field and a deeper recent track record against Boston, he has the edge. What likely decides this game is not whether one regular season was fake, but which lineup adjusts better to two similar power-fastball profiles. Tolle has shown he can neutralize the Yankees, but Schlittler has done it more often, over a larger sample, and in this exact setting. That makes him the favorite, though only slightly, in what looks set up as a low-scoring duel rather than a referendum on either season.

3 articles · Updated · The Boston Globe · Sep 30

Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium opens a best-of-three AL Wild Card rematch, with Boston returning to the Bronx one year after New York ended its season in a winner-take-all Game 3.
Game 1 pits 23-year-old rookie Payton Tolle against Cam Schlittler, 25, who owns a 0.56 ERA and 0.90 WHIP in five career starts versus Boston and is the heavy AL Cy Young favorite.
Boston arrives changed from last October: Alex Cora is gone, Chad Tracy now manages, and only four hitters from that earlier lineup remain against a new short-series rotation of Tolle, Sonny Gray and Ranger Suarez.
New York secured all games at home by taking the top AL wild card at 93-68, while the 87-75 Red Sox adjusted to an early workout slot Monday after the Yankees claimed the longer field window.