The Cam Schlittler Show: A Season Review

The Cam Schlittler Show: A Season Review

Through nine starts, the Yankees' 25-year-old right-hander is doing things no pitcher has done in over a century — and Friday night in Queens, he did them again.

Cam Schlittler walked into Citi Field on May 15 and walked out of it with a 6–1 record and the lowest ERA in baseball still intact. Six and two-thirds innings, two hits, one run, two walks, nine strikeouts. His ERA held at 1.35, MLB-best by a comfortable margin. In a Subway Series opener the Yankees needed badly — winners of just three of their previous nine — Schlittler delivered exactly what he has been delivering all season: length, contact suppression, and the quiet certainty of a pitcher who has stopped being surprised by his own ceiling.

The headline number is the historical one. Through his first nine starts, Schlittler has more than 50 strikeouts, fewer than 10 walks, no more than one home run allowed, and a sub-1.50 ERA. The last pitcher to hit all four of those marks through nine starts was Walter Johnson, in 1913. That is not a comparison anyone outside Cooperstown is supposed to invite. Schlittler has done it while the Yankees' rotation has been held together with duct tape — Gerrit Cole rehabbing all spring, Carlos Rodón only recently back, Max Fried carrying the other end. The plan in March was for Schlittler to hold his spot. The reality is that he has been the rotation's anchor and, for stretches, its only sure thing.

The Stuff, and the Command

The fastball gets the headlines — upper-90s, late life, the kind that makes broadcast radar guns look like they're typo-ing — but what makes Schlittler's run feel sustainable rather than fluky is the command. He had issued nine walks against 59 strikeouts entering Friday. He added nine more punchouts and two walks to the Mets, pushing the season ratio to roughly 68-to-11. That is a number you associate with veteran control artists, not with a 25-year-old in his first full big-league season. The stuff is playing because he is locating it, not because hitters are guessing.

The schedule of dominance, when you lay it out, is almost monotonous. Five or more strikeouts in eight of his nine starts. No more than five runs allowed in any of his last five outings. Two earned runs total across the four starts leading into Friday — a 24⅓-inning stretch that included a complete dismantling of the Red Sox at Fenway, where he went a career-high eight innings and allowed just one earned run while pitching through what the Yankees themselves described as the noise and emotional weight of a first major-league start in that building. After the game, Schlittler called it "a grind" and said his stuff "wasn't great." His teammates, asked the same question, rolled their eyes.

"From his first start ever, I always thought he was impressive, and I've expressed that to him all his career." — Jazz Chisholm Jr.

The Toughness

There is also a physical-courage subplot developing. In his start in Milwaukee earlier this month, Schlittler took a 108.5 mph comebacker directly off his leg and stayed in the game. On Friday, he took another scorched line drive at his feet in the seventh inning and didn't blink — finished the at-bat, finished the inning, kept going until a Juan Soto solo homer and a walk to Brett Baty finally pushed his pitch count past 100. The Yankees lifted him because they had to, not because he asked.

Combined with a web gem in the fourth inning Friday — a barehanded snare of a comebacker that even the broadcast crew needed a replay to believe — the picture is of a pitcher who is not just talented but visibly unbothered. Bellinger called him "extremely confident up there." Chisholm said he saw it from Schlittler's first big-league start last summer. The clubhouse has clearly decided this is who he is.

The Cy Young Conversation

It is the middle of May. The American League Cy Young conversation technically still has other names in it — Tarik Skubal, Garrett Crochet, Hunter Brown all linger in the top tier — but for the moment, the ledger reads: Schlittler is the AL leader in ERA, FIP, WHIP, and hits allowed per nine innings. He is 6–1. He is durable. He is healthy. And the Yankees, who entered 2026 hoping for a rotation that could survive Cole's absence, instead got a rotation with a frontline ace they didn't know they had.

The next time he pitches, the comparisons will reach further back than they already have. The next time he pitches, half of baseball will be watching to see if the line finally cracks. So far, it hasn't.

The Yankees needed a frontline starter to emerge. One has. And he doesn't seem all that interested in stopping.

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BY THE NUMBERS — CAM SCHLITTLER, 2026

Record: 6–1

ERA: 1.35 (MLB-best)

Innings: ~58.0

Strikeouts: 68

Walks: 11

K/BB ratio: ~6.2

K/9: 10.0+

WHIP: MLB-best

FIP: MLB-best

Hits allowed per 9: MLB-best

Starts of 5+ strikeouts: 8 of 9

Earned runs over last 5 starts: 3 in 31 IP

Career-high innings in a start: 8 (at Fenway, April 23)

Historical note: First pitcher with 50+ K, fewer than 10 BB, ≤1 HR, and sub-1.50 ERA through nine starts since Walter Johnson in 1913.

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