NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 02: Cam Schlittler #31 of the New York Yankees celebrates during the fifth inning against the Boston Red Sox in game three of the American League Wild Card Series at Yankee Stadium on October 02, 2025 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Ishika Samant/Getty Images)
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It’s a sign of the bizarre state of the world circa 2025 that a series victory by the Yankees, the most successful franchise in North American professional sports history by any measure, can be viewed as restorer of some normalcy.
But the Yankees’ 4-0 win over the Red Sox in the decisive game three of an AL wild card series Thursday night sure felt like a return to an old routine.
By advancing to face the Blue Jays in the ALDS, the Yankees — and this is truly a bizarre thing to type — finally exorcised some historical demons against the Red Sox, who’d won the last three playoff series between the clubs dating back to the infamous 2004 ALCS that helped end the so-called curse.
“Honestly, going into the night for me personally, it felt like as pressure-packed a game as I have ever been in — as a player, manager, going into the World Series, that’s clinching to go into a World Series,” said manager Aaron Boone, whose walk-off homer in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS gave the Yankees their previous postseason victory over the Red Sox.
Becoming the first baseball team to ever come back from a one game to none deficit to win a best-of-three wild card series sure isn’t becoming the first team to come back from a three games to none deficit to win a best-of-seven series. But it is a first nonetheless.
The Yankees made their quirky bit of history thanks to a pair of players who grew up in the suburbs of Boston — the kind of charmed life geographical coincidence the Yankees used to experience all the time with New Jersey native Derek Jeter growing up to play shortstop for his favorite team and David Wells throwing a perfect game in front of fellow Point Loma High School graduate and perfect game author Don Larsen in 1998.
Ben Rice, who grew up in Cohasset before being selected out of Dartmouth in the 12th round of the 2021 draft, hit a two-run homer in the first inning of Game 2 to give the Yankees a much-needed early lead in an eventual 4-3 win.
Rice’s feats were just an appetizer for rookie Cam Schlittler, a native of Walpole who went to Northeastern before being picked in the seventh round of the 2022 draft. Schlittler authored one of the greatest performances a modern pitcher can possibly produce Thursday, when the 24-year-old right-hander struck out 12 and walked none over eight innings of five-hit ball.
“We needed to be perfect tonight, because he was perfect,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “That was electric. That was electric.”
Schlittler’s outing was the longest scoreless performance by a pitcher 25 years or younger in a winner-take-all or potential postseason clincher game since Oct. 25, 2003, when Josh Beckett tossed a five-hitter as the Marlins won their most recent title by beating the Yankees 2-0.
“I knew exactly what I needed to do and go out there, especially against my hometown team,” Schlittler said. “As I told Andy (Pettitte) yesterday, I wasn’t going to let them beat me.”
The success of Rice and Schlittler were reminders Brian Cashman — an easy and often deserving target throughout the Yankees’ 15-year title drought — apprenticed under Gene Michael, who put together the dynasty teams by building around Jeter as well as Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Bernie Williams. Pettitte and Posada were drafted in rounds that don’t exist anymore while Rivera and Williams received fewer than $20,000 combined in signing bonuses upon joining the organization as international free agents.
The Yankees eliminated the Red Sox on the 47th anniversary of Bucky bleeping Dent’s go-ahead homer lifting the Yankees to victory in a one-game playoff for the AL East crown and fewer than three hours after Dent threw out the first pitch Thursday. Dent also threw out the first pitch prior to Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, when only a supernatural act could have helped the Yankees with whatever was left of Kevin Brown on the mound.
The Yankees lost Game 7 in 2004 to Derek Lowe. The last out Thursday was made by Nathaniel Lowe, who popped up to Ryan McMahon in four territory behind third base.
And if you want to get really weird, McMahon is a former Rockies third baseman just like Charlie Hayes, who caught the final out of the 1996 World Series in a similar spot across the street.
That catch, of course, started baseball’s most recent dynasty. The Yankees have a long way to go just to get to the World Series. But they have as many victories as any remaining AL foe (the Blue Jays won the AL East by virtue of the head-to-head tiebreaker), the best run differential in the league and the momentum of going a major league-best 27-9 since Aug. 24.
With their aging starting pitchers, the Blue Jays’ hopes may rest on rookie Trey Yesavage making a Schlittler-like impact. The Tigers blew the biggest lead in the history of divisional play. The Mariners are the only AL playoff team against whom the Yankees finished with a winning record against this season. The Astros are already home.
As Schlittler racked up the innings and strikeouts, Thursday night felt like a defining where-were-you-when moment for not only his team — McMahon tumbling head-over-heels into the Red Sox’s dugout to snare Jarren Duran’s pop-up in the eighth was Jeter-esque, except very necessary — but an era that’s been marred thus far by the Yankees’ inability to succeed against superior opponents.
The Yankees’ last 10 series victories since winning their most recent title in 2009 came against of the Orioles, Twins, Athletics, Royals and Guardians, a quintet of franchises that have combined to win one championship in the wild card era. But the last 11 teams to eliminate the Yankees include four eventual world champions and four eventual AL pennant winners.
The Red Sox had five fewer wins than the Yankees this season, and, sans Roman Anthony or a reliable starter behind Garrett Crochet, were no real threat to win the World Series. But they won nine of 13 against the Yankees and Alex Cora presided over the Red Sox teams that eliminated Boone and the Yankees in 2018 and 2021.
If the Yankees didn’t beat the Red Sox, it would have stung as much as any elimination at the hands of any pennant-winner or champion. Boone said part of the reason Thursday felt so pressure-packed was because “…of what I think our team is.”
Instead, the Red Sox were the ones exchanging hugs and handshakes in a quiet locker room while appreciating the progress they’d made while rediscovering the joy during an unexpectedly successful season.
“I had a blast this year,” Cora said. “The last few years have been tough with the up-and-downs and where we were as an organization, but I think the front office has done an amazing job pushing forward in certain areas.”
These were nice things to hear in a sport where people take themselves way too seriously — but also the type of things you’d never hear from the Yankees, then or now.
A team owned by John Henry, more concerned with balancing the books than two decades ago, is particularly vulnerable to a long-term window of contention slamming shut. And one year’s joy can easily give way to the next year’s agony even for teams owned by men who are happy to spend whatever necessary to win, as the crosstown Mets finished learning in agonizing fashion Sunday.
Four nights later, the Red Sox might have become the Red Sox again — thanks to Cam Schlittler, who might have set the Yankees on their own path to a familiar destination.