BOSTON — Cam Schlittler walked out to the Fenway Park bullpen on Thursday night braced for the worst.
He had said earlier in the week that he and his family received death threats from Red Sox fans. He had admitted the online hate both irritated him and fired him up. For a kid who grew up in Walpole, Mass., attended Northeastern, and still roots for the Bruins, the turn had been sharp. One dominant playoff start last October flipped him from hometown kid to public enemy.
He expected Fenway to let him have it. What he got instead surprised him.
Boos were few, Yankees fans were plenty
Cam Schlittler walked from the visiting dugout toward right field to stretch before the game. He then entered the bullpen. The reaction from the crowd was not what he had prepared for.
There were some boos. A few hecklers called out the usual stuff. One fan hollered, “Mr. Walpole, forget where you came from?” Others simply yelled “ball” or “single” or “home run” after each of his warmup pitches. Standard ballpark noise.
But the venom he had faced online simply did not show up in person. One young fan held up a sign that read, “Walpole loves Schlittler.” Yankees fans actually outnumbered Red Sox fans in the right-field area a half hour before first pitch.
The boos that greeted Aaron Judge during the lineup announcement were louder than anything directed at Schlittler.
After pitching eight strong innings in a 4-2 Yankees win that completed the sweep, Schlittler reflected on what the atmosphere had actually felt like. He was clearly a bit caught off guard. “For the most part, [fans were] really respectful,” he said. “And a lot of Yankees fans here.”
He summed up the night with four words. “Just another game,” he said.
The Yankees took no chances with security
The organization was not going to leave anything to chance. The threats had been real enough that the Yankees took visible precautions before the first pitch.
All three of Schlittler’s pitching coaches, Matt Blake, Preston Claiborne and Desi Druschel, stood directly behind him during his bullpen warmup. The positioning was deliberate. They placed themselves between Schlittler and any fan who might get out of line.
The Yankees’ director of team security also followed Schlittler from the dugout to the bullpen. He stayed in the vicinity of right field throughout the warmup. Fenway Park security did not allow fans to stand in the bullpen area without a valid ticket.
Nothing happened. But the Yankees were ready if it had.
Schlittler dominates the Red Sox for eight innings
Once the game started, Schlittler handled everything on the field with just as much calm.
He went eight innings. He allowed just two runs, only one earned. He scattered four hits, struck out five, and walked one batter. His ERA dropped to 1.77. It was the longest start of his 20-game regular-season career.
The muted crowd played a role too, according to manager Aaron Boone. The Red Sox scored just three runs in the entire three-game series. A quiet offense makes for a quiet ballpark. Boone addressed how the lack of Red Sox offense had dampened the usual Fenway intensity.
“I think [the Red Sox] not scoring a lot or mounting a lot necessarily kind of took [away] a little bit of that angst that you get from playing at Fenway, which can be so tough,” Boone said. “So, he did a good job of not giving them a lot to rally about.”
Schlittler also had a simple theory about why the online hate never translated to the stands. Asked what he took from the contrast between the threats he received and the crowd he actually faced, he was direct.
“You [underestimate] how many genuine people are out there compared to online,” he said.
A rivalry angle that fell flat, at least for now
There had been a real storyline building here. Schlittler’s October shutout against the Red Sox had reignited a rivalry that had cooled for years. His willingness to publicly punch back at abusive fans added fuel. This game had the ingredients for something memorable.
Instead, the crowd at sold-out Fenway Park, all 36,565 of them, gave him a relatively civil night. Part of that is simply where the Red Sox stand right now. They fell to 9-16 with Thursday’s loss. They sit last in the American League East. Fans who are watching their own team fail tend to have less energy left over for the opposing pitcher.
The Yankees, meanwhile, are 16-9. They have won six straight. They lead the AL East by 2.5 games. David Bednar closed out the ninth for his seventh save. Cody Bellinger delivered the go-ahead two-run pinch hit in the seventh. Aaron Judge added an RBI single.
Schlittler got the win, raised his record to 3-1, and walked out of Fenway Park without a scratch.
The rivalry may yet boil over. But Thursday was not that night.
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
