TAMPA, Fla. — The New York Yankees have not played a meaningful game since October. Spring training is just getting started. The Grapefruit League schedule has not even kicked off yet.
And still, somehow, Cam Schlittler is living rent-free inside the heads of every Red Sox fan on social media.
The 25-year-old Yankees right-hander did not fire a shot. He did not post anything provocative. He did not taunt anyone. All he did was tweet something about heading to Tampa for spring training on Feb. 11, a perfectly routine post for a big league pitcher reporting to camp.
It did not matter. Red Sox fans descended on his mentions like clockwork, dragging up the same grievances they have been nursing since he ended their 2025 season with eight scoreless innings at Yankee Stadium.
The tweet that set Boston on fire
For context, Schlittler lives in Boston during the offseason. He grew up in Walpole, Massachusetts, about 15 miles outside the city. He played college baseball at Northeastern University. He is a Bruins fan. He still keeps an apartment in the Seaport neighborhood.
So when he posted about packing up and heading south for Yankees camp, it was exactly what any pitcher would do in mid-February. Nothing more. Nothing less.
But Boston fans could not let it go. The replies came fast and hostile.
Red Sox fan @natefromnatick mocked the Yankees pitcher’s living situation: “The time of year when Schlittler packs up his apartment in Seaport stops cosplaying as a Bostonian and heads down to Tampa.”
Another Boston loyalist, @Parikh42, tried to undercut Schlittler’s Bruins fandom: “I’m sure you were saying that at all the bruins games you went to this offseason.”
Dozens of others piled on with the same stale accusations. That he is a traitor. That he abandoned his hometown. That his loyalty to the Yankees is performative.
Yankees fans, predictably, were thrilled with the spectacle. The Bronx faithful flooded the same thread with support, celebrating the way Schlittler occupies Boston’s headspace without even trying.
One fan called Schlittler “a legend for making Red Sox fans this mad in February.” Another replied: “They can’t quit you, king.” Others pointed out the obvious irony: Boston fans claim they do not care about Schlittler, yet they monitor his every post like it is a press conference.
Schlittler did not respond to any of them. He did not need to. The scoreboard from October still speaks for itself.
How Schlittler became baseball’s most effortless villain
This is the dynamic that Red Sox fans created for themselves, and they seem incapable of escaping it.
It started in the 2025 AL Wild Card Series. The Yankees were facing elimination in Game 3. Schlittler, a seventh-round pick making his postseason debut, got the ball. Before the first pitch, Red Sox fans on social media went after his family. His mother, Christine, was harassed so badly that she made her X account private.
Schlittler found out before he took the mound. It fueled him. He told reporters afterward that the posts “100 percent” gave him extra motivation.
What followed was one of the most dominant performances in Yankees postseason history. Eight scoreless innings. Twelve strikeouts. Zero walks. He became the first pitcher in major league history to throw at least eight shutout innings with 12 or more strikeouts and no walks in a playoff game.
“There’s a line I think they crossed a little bit,” Schlittler said after the game. “I’m a competitor. All they’re doing is feeding the fire.”
Even Boston manager Alex Cora acknowledged what the Yankees pitcher had done to his lineup.
“The stuff is outstanding. He was under control. That was electric,” Cora said after Game 3.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone backed his young pitcher without hesitation.
“Cam’s a tough kid, and I know he is going to handle any slings and arrows,” Boone said.
After the game, Schlittler twisted the knife. He posted “Drinking dat dirty water” on X, a mocking nod to the song that plays at Fenway Park after every Red Sox win. When a fan replied that Schlittler was “not from Boston,” he shot back, pointing out that he went to school in the city for three years and lives in Southie during the offseason.
The trolling only grew from there. In late October, a video surfaced of Schlittler signing autographs outside Madison Square Garden after a Knicks game. A Yankees fan shouted a profane anti-Boston chant. Schlittler repeated it back with a grin. One fan on X reacted: “Cam Schlittler is a goat, bro.” Another wrote: “Kid is an absolute competitor. Will be an amazing Yankee for years to come and will OWN the Red Sox.”
Red Sox fans gave themselves this problem
That is what makes the latest episode so fitting. Schlittler is not trying to provoke anyone. He is simply existing as a Yankees pitcher, and that alone is enough to send Red Sox fans into a spiral.
Boston had an entire offseason to move past it. They chose not to. Instead, they are monitoring Schlittler’s every post like it contains classified information, ready to unleash a barrage of replies at the slightest mention of New York, Tampa or anything that reminds them he wears pinstripes now.
In a November post on X, Schlittler tried to close the chapter with a measured statement.
“I truly respect Boston and that organization,” Schlittler wrote. “A rivalry is a rivalry, and my loyalty is with New York for as long as I’m here.”
Red Sox fans did not accept the olive branch. They never will. And that is exactly why Schlittler has become the most compelling figure in the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry since Bucky Dent.
The numbers tell the story of why this stings so much for Boston. In 14 starts for the Yankees in 2025, the Walpole native posted a 2.96 ERA with 85 strikeouts in 73 innings. In the postseason, he was even sharper, carrying a 1.26 ERA in two starts. His regular-season record stood at 4-3 with a 1.22 WHIP.
Schlittler reported to Yankees spring training in Tampa this week dealing with minor mid-back inflammation and a left lat issue. He described his concern level as “zero” and expects to be ready for Opening Day in San Francisco on March 25.
When he takes the mound for real this season, the rivalry will only grow louder. But if Red Sox fans were hoping an entire winter would cool things down, Feb. 11 proved the opposite. All it took was one harmless tweet about heading to camp, and Boston was right back where Schlittler wants them: furious, helpless and completely unable to look away.
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