NEW YORK — Cam Schlittler has spent 2026 turning heads with his right arm.
He carries a 2.04 ERA. He has piled up 210 strikeouts. He is in the thick of an American League Cy Young race. On the mound, he has been one of the best stories in baseball, and one of the biggest reasons the Yankees remain in a tight division fight.
Off the mound, he has a different kind of reputation, and it just grew.
For months, Schlittler has been a lightning rod with Boston Red Sox fans, a feud rooted in his Massachusetts upbringing and his college years at Northeastern before he signed with the rival Yankees. That back-and-forth has spilled onto social media all season.
This week, it produced a new twist. And this time it did not come from an opposing fan base.
It came from inside the Yankees clubhouse.
A teammate watched Schlittler light up the internet again, then handed him a label that stuck almost immediately. What followed was a small, public moment of clubhouse humor that told you as much about how the Yankees view their breakout ace as any scouting report could.
What the deleted line was, and what it was not
The deleted remark grew out of the Schlittler-Boston saga. On a recent episode of the Red Sox-centric Section 10 podcast, a co-host named Rusey took a personal shot at Schlittler while discussing his New England roots, calling him ugly and saying she hated him. The criticism followed a shutout he threw against Boston.
Schlittler did not let it pass. In a post that was quickly taken down but widely screenshotted, he fired back at the host’s on-air look with the now-traveling “solid 4’s with oversized sunglasses” line. Rusey was wearing oversized sunglasses while hosting the podcast.
The reaction split down the middle. Some fans called the move corny. Others celebrated it, joking that a rival who thinks this much about Boston is exactly why they love him. A viral back-and-forth was born either way.
Ryan Weathers hands Schlittler a new nickname
Fellow Yankees pitcher Ryan Weathers dropped into the comments of a recent Schlittler post and called the right-hander a “professional ragebaiter.”
The phrase is internet shorthand for someone who says something provocative on purpose, knowing it will set off a reaction. The comment was short. The timing was what gave it teeth.
It landed as screenshots of a deleted remark attributed to Schlittler were spreading online. The line that drew the attention read: “solid 4’s with oversized sunglasses.” Schlittler had also posted a glasses emoji on X on Wednesday, a jab widely read as another nod to the same feud.
Schlittler’s post itself was ordinary, showing the pitcher in his Yankees uniform. Weathers supplied the subplot. Schlittler’s account then liked the comment, which only reinforced the sense that the teammates were leaning into the moment rather than running from it.
Schlittler owns his part in the rivalry
The most telling response came from Schlittler himself. Asked about the steady online hostility from Red Sox fans, the Yankees ace did not pretend to be a bystander. He acknowledged that his own comments after last year’s playoffs helped start it.
“It’s never stopped,” Schlittler said. “Whether it’s comments on my posts or my messages or Twitter or whatever it is, or messaging people in my family, it’s always been there. It hasn’t stopped at all. I don’t expect it to stop.”
He went further, taking responsibility for lighting the fuse in the first place, a rare admission that the feud is one he chose to feed.
“I feel like I probably created that issue,” Schlittler said. “I could have easily just thrown last year and not said anything, but it didn’t feel right to not say anything.”
That is the quote that gives Weathers’ nickname its weight. Schlittler never used the word ragebaiter, but his explanation described the behavior almost exactly. He knows the reaction is coming, accepts that he invites it, and keeps talking anyway.
The detail nobody is connecting: It comes from fellow starter
Here is the wrinkle that makes this more than a throwaway comment. Weathers is not a random account. He is a fellow Yankees starter, acquired from the Miami Marlins in January, who posted a 3.60 ERA with 143 strikeouts across 25 starts before a forearm flexor strain put him on the injured list in late August.
There is also a family thread worth noting. Weathers is the son of former Yankees pitcher David Weathers, making him part of one of only a handful of father-son duos to have worn the uniform. This was not an outsider poking at Schlittler. It was a teammate with his own standing in the rotation choosing, publicly, to tease him.
That is what turned a deleted line into a genuine clubhouse story. The ribbing came from a peer who knows Schlittler, likes him enough to needle him, and understood the joke would land. Schlittler liking the reply closed the loop. Read together, the exchange reads as camaraderie, not conflict, and that distinction is the actual news here.
Timing collides with Schlittler’s Cy Young push
The Yankees would surely prefer the Schlittler conversation to stay on the mound, because what he is doing there is historic. He held the Angels to one run and two hits over eight innings on Tuesday, striking out nine and walking none. It was his 19th start allowing one run or fewer, a Yankees single-season record that moved him past Ron Guidry, Whitey Ford and Jack Chesbro. The Red Sox shutout that set off the podcast jab came days earlier, a 1-0 win in which he spun 5⅔ scoreless innings with eight strikeouts.
Through 29 starts, the 25-year-old owns that 2.04 ERA with 210 strikeouts over 171⅔ innings. His road work has been even sharper, a 1.14 ERA across 16 starts away from Yankee Stadium. His Cy Young race with Toronto’s Dylan Cease has become one of September’s defining AL storylines, with Schlittler holding edges in ERA and innings while Cease leads in strikeouts.
Schlittler has never hidden his personality, and his edge around Yankees-Red Sox games is a big reason New York fans embraced him so fast. He controls what a baseball does. He controls far less once a deleted comment is captured and shared. For now, the Yankees ace remains one of the sport’s biggest breakout stories and a Cy Young favorite, with one new unofficial title attached as the “solid 4’s” line keeps making the rounds.
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