It was a game of one’s, as one outstanding pitching performance and one inning’s worth of scoring helped the Yankees easily handle the Reds in a 5-0 win at home, their first shutout win this month. If you went out searching for a worst-case-scenario matchup for an offense against a specific starter, it’d be a massive challenge to find one that would rival Cam Schlittler against the Reds. Cincinnati entered play tonight with the worst offensive numbers in baseball against pitches of 95 mph or higher:
a .194 batting average and .305 slugging percentage—credit to the YES broadcast for displaying this in the fourth inning when Schlittler had already recorded seven of his eventual 13 punchouts, topping his dozen from the AL Wild Card Series clincher against Boston last October.
For a team that hits so poorly high velocity, facing a starter with not one, not two, but three separate high-velocity offerings, allowing him to basically shelve anything offspeed is a nightmare. The biggest question in anyone’s mind, watching Schlittler mow down the Reds inning after inning, was how long he’d last, considering he was racking up the strikeouts quite early: a giveaway for a high pitch count, but that, all things considered, was never as high as his number of K’s would indicate.
Although the opponent allowed Schlittler to shelve a curve he already hardly uses, there were some interesting adjustments within those three primary pitches. Schlittler more than doubled his sinker usage from a 19-percent season average to 43 percent against the Reds, utilizing it as the primary offering against both handedness and then the four-seamer as the main complement against lefties and the cutter versus the righties. Through six scoreless innings, the right-hander tossed a virtually stress-free 96 pitches to earn an amazing 13 strikeouts with no walks, keeping the Reds 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and with a sense that a potential rally was always very far away.
With Schlittler dominating in the manner in which he did, the Yankees didn’t need a whole lot of offense to take what would at least feel like a commanding lead. They did it in a manner that might be all too common for them, but not something that Rhett Lowder has experienced often, if ever, in his young major league career.
The Reds starter came into this game having allowed three homers across 77.2 innings in his career as a big leaguer. In one inning, Lowder nearly doubled that mark, giving up first a solo shot to Jazz Chisholm Jr. and then a three-run bomb to Ben Rice, both in the bottom of the second inning. Rice’s homer would turn out to be the Yankees’ only hit with a runner in scoring position until the eighth, when Chisholm earned a walk, stole second, and came around to score on an Anthony Volpe RBI single.
While Schlittler was amazing and the offense did its part to give him a healthy lead early, it also stopped scoring after that second inning, thus putting at least some pressure on the bullpen to finish things off. A four-run lead may be comforting, but it is only a four-run lead. Luckily, Jake Bird, Brent Headrick, and David Bednar were all on their game, each pitching in with a scoreless frame. They might not have had the same zip on their fastball as Schlittler, but it was more than enough to overpower the struggling Reds.
The Yankees have their fourth consecutive series win in their crosshairs tomorrow afternoon, as they send righty Will Warren out to face southpaw Andrew Abbott. First pitch is at 1:35pm ET on YES.
