Alexander Wilson
Cam Schlittler walked into Fenway Park on Thursday night with a hostile crowd, death threats in his recent past, and all the pressure that comes with being a kid from Massachusetts pitching for the team everyone in that stadium hates. He responded by throwing eight innings of one-run baseball, allowing four hits, striking out five, and lowering his ERA to 1.77 on the season. The New York Yankees completed the sweep. Schlittler got a curtain call in the visiting dugout from teammates who understood exactly what he just did.
This is becoming a pattern. Every fifth day, Schlittler takes the ball and gives this team a genuine chance to win regardless of what the lineup produces. He’s striking out 10.35 batters per nine innings, walking just 1.01 per nine, posting a 69.1% left on base rate and a 49.4% ground ball rate. His full profile this season looks like a pitcher operating years ahead of where anyone expected him to be this early in his career. He was drafted in the seventh round in 2022. He is 24 years old. He is one of the best pitchers in the American League right now and it’s not particularly close.
What the Rotation Already Looks Like
Schlittler headlines, but he’s not doing this alone. Max Fried is the undisputed ace of this staff with a 2.40 ERA over 41.1 innings, coming off back-to-back masterclasses including eight scoreless innings against these same Red Sox on Wednesday. Will Warren has been better than anyone projected with a 2.49 ERA and a career-high strikeout rate. Ryan Weathers is at 3.18 and already throwing more innings than he managed all of last season. This rotation, right now, as it currently stands without two of its best arms available, has been one of the best in baseball.
Then you add what’s coming.
Gerrit Cole is in the middle of his rehab assignment, ramping his velocity back toward where it needs to be after Tommy John surgery. The reports out of Double-A have been encouraging. He’s been building his pitch count steadily and the arm action looks healthy. If everything continues on schedule, Cole returns to the major league rotation sometime in May, and when he does, the Yankees will have Fried and Cole at the top of a staff that is already elite. That combination, in a five-man rotation that also includes Schlittler, Warren, and Weathers, is going to be genuinely difficult for any lineup in the American League to process on a daily basis.
And Then There’s Rodon
Carlos Rodon is still working through his own return timeline after elbow cleanup surgery and a hamstring complication that pushed things back a few weeks. When he comes back, and the expectation is that he gets there before June, the Yankees are going to have a rotation surplus that is an entirely different kind of problem to manage.
Last season Rodon posted a 3.09 ERA over 195.1 innings, the best year of his career in pinstripes. He was the team’s number two starter behind Fried and the most durable he has been in years. A healthy version of that pitcher sliding back into a rotation that has already proven it can function without him is borderline unfair to the rest of the league.
At that point, Aaron Boone faces a genuine decision about what to do with the depth. Warren and Weathers have both earned their spots, and Schlittler is not going anywhere. The most likely outcome is that at least one starter transitions into a high-leverage bullpen role where the innings are managed more carefully and the matchup value is maximized. There are worse problems to have.
What This Sweep Means
Three games in Boston. Three wins. The Yankees are 17-9 and sitting comfortably at the top of the American League East. They’ve done it in April without their best pitcher from 2024 and without their most experienced left-hander. They’ve done it with a 24-year-old from Massachusetts walking into Fenway and throwing eight innings of one-run ball on the road while the home crowd wanted nothing more than to see him fail.
By June, this rotation could legitimately be the best in baseball. Right now, it’s already making the argument.
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