Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice, two stars with Boston roots, lead Yankees to statement win over the rival Red Sox

Both Massholes delivered massive performances on Tuesday in Game 1 of the 2026 wild-card series against the Boston Red Sox . Schlittler tossed 6 1/3 scoreless and punched out 10. Rice went 4-for-5 with two homers and six RBI. The Yankees clobbered their forever rivals 9-0 in a laugher to put themselves one win from advancing to an ALDS date with the Tampa Bay Rays .

For most of this picturesque autumn night in the Bronx, Schlittler was the main character. It was the second consecutive postseason in which New York's flame-throwing string-bean right-hander gave his boyhood team a baseball swirly. The presumptive AL Cy Young surrendered just two hits — one to the second batter he faced and one to the last. Otherwise, Schlittler was nearly flawless, with a fifth-inning free pass to Jarren Duran the only blemish.

He did so with a barrage of curveballs, 32 to be exact, 12 more than he'd thrown in any other MLB start. That pitch-mix pivot kept Sox hitters guessing and led to a whopping 24 whiffs against Schlittler. The dominance was so striking that New York's outfielders — Cody Bellinger , Spencer Jones and Heliot Ramos — each handled the baseball just once while Schlittler was on the mound.