TAMPA, Fla. — There is a spot in the center of the Yankees dugout at George M. Steinbrenner Field. On Friday afternoon, it held a bag of baseballs and some gum. But for Aaron Boone, it held a memory. The Yankees manager pointed right at it before the game and recalled the moment he first noticed something different about Cam Schlittler.
“I remember it right here,” Boone said. “I just remember a couple of times checking on him here. At that point, I didn’t know him that well. It stood out to me in Spring Training. He wasn’t overwhelmed; he was just at ease right away, in the best kind of way.”
That was March 2025. Schlittler was still a minor leaguer, unknown to most fans. By October, he was carving up the Red Sox in a winner-take-all playoff game. And on Friday night, in his first action since the postseason, the 25-year-old right-hander showed the Yankees and their fans that the best might still be ahead of him.
A delayed debut with a quick payoff
Schlittler’s spring had been on hold. Mid-back inflammation, combined with left lat discomfort, kept him off the mound for the first 11 games of the Yankees Grapefruit League schedule. He threw live batting practice sessions to stay sharp with the Yankees, but had not faced hitters in a game since his ALDS start against Toronto last October.
On Friday, he finally got the call. The result was a clean 2.1 scoreless innings against the Rays in a 3-0 Yankees victory at Steinbrenner Field. He scattered two hits, one of them an infield single, walked one batter, and punched out four. He threw 39 pitches, 24 of them strikes. He set down the first batter he faced on just three pitches, finishing him off with a 99.4 mph fastball.
“I’m just making good progress with the body and the arm,” Schlittler said. “I’m able to go out there confidently. I’m feeling good.”
The cutter changes everything for the Yankees starter
The fastball has always been the calling card. On Friday, Schlittler’s four-seamer sat at 98.7 mph across the outing. His two-seamer averaged 98.1 mph. Both are elite by any standard. But it was a different pitch that turned heads in the Yankees dugout: a revamped cutter that now sits in the mid-90s and could reshape the Yankees pitching outlook this season.
The cutter averaged 94.9 mph on Friday. That is a significant jump from the 91.9 mph it averaged during the 2025 regular season. It peaked at 96.5 mph. Two of Schlittler’s four strikeouts came on swing-and-miss cutters. It looked like a completely different pitch.
Schlittler credited Gerrit Cole with helping him reshape the offering before his final regular season start last year. Cole encouraged him to split the cutter into two versions, with the harder one designed for use at the top of the zone.
“My last start of the season, Gerrit split up that pitch and I went into the playoffs with that 94-96 mile-an-hour cutter,” Schlittler said. “I was able to see really good results with it up in the zone. I’ll continue to hopefully keep the velo and the location as well.”
Boone was blunt about what he saw.
“It’s nasty, too,” Boone said. “Just standing behind him, it’s kind of wicked. If he can get the consistency of that curveball, the three fastballs with the curveball, then he gets pretty tough to deal with.”
Building toward Opening Day in San Francisco
The Yankees open the regular season on March 25 against the Giants at Oracle Park. Three scheduled off-days in the first week-plus of the season mean the Yankees do not strictly need a fifth starter right away. But Boone has not ruled out putting Schlittler in the rotation from the start.
The plan is to build him up to around 70 pitches by Opening Day weekend. Schlittler acknowledged he will not reach his full stamina of 90 pitches by then, but he expressed confidence in the timeline the Yankees pitching staff mapped out for him.
“We talked it out, we’ve got a plan laid out, so I’m very confident that I’m going to be good to go that weekend,” Schlittler said.
Boone said he would take 70 pitches from the 25-year-old and be comfortable with it. He called Schlittler’s mid-year arrival from Triple-A last season “a little bit of an acquisition for us,” a nod to how much the right-hander changed the Yankees pitching staff in the second half. In 14 starts after his July call-up, Schlittler posted a 2.96 ERA with 84 strikeouts across 73 innings for the Yankees.
A bigger role awaits in the Yankees rotation
The Yankees enter 2026 without Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, and Clarke Schmidt to start the year, all recovering from injuries. Max Fried is the undisputed ace after posting a 2.86 ERA in 195.1 innings last season. But behind him, the Yankees need Schlittler to take a significant step forward in his sophomore campaign. The Yankees rotation depth depends on it.
His 2025 resume makes the case for optimism. Beyond the regular season numbers, Schlittler delivered one of the most memorable postseason performances in recent Yankees history. In the winner-take-all Game 3 of the Wild Card Series, he fired eight shutout innings against the Red Sox with 12 strikeouts and zero walks. He set a Yankees franchise record for strikeouts in a postseason debut. His fastball touched 100 mph multiple times that night.
“He comes up and he’s able to make adjustments without it being stressful,” Boone said. “He was just at ease right away, in the best kind of way.”
Now the arsenal is deeper. The cutter is harder. The curveball is improving. The confidence has not changed. Friday was only 39 pitches against a Rays lineup full of minor leaguers. It was spring training. But for the Yankees, it was proof that their young arm is healthy, hungry, and throwing harder than ever. And with the Yankees Opening Day less than three weeks away, that is exactly what the Bronx Bombers needed to see.
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
