Cam Schlittler Just Did Something No Yankees Pitcher Has Done Since Whitey Ford

Cam Schlittler didn’t just beat the Reds on Friday night. He flat-out dominated them. And in the process, the 25-year-old right-hander carved out a piece of Yankees history that hasn’t been touched in over 60 years.

Schlittler struck out a career-high 13 batters over six scoreless innings in New York’s 5-0 win at Yankee Stadium. He gave up four hits, walked nobody and threw 66 of his 96 pitches for strikes. His ERA dropped to 1.71 through 16 starts, which leads the American League. The last Yankees pitcher to have an ERA that low that deep into a season was Whitey Ford in 1964, when he posted a 1.47 mark. That’s not bad company.

According to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs, Schlittler became the youngest pitcher in franchise history (25 years, 134 days) to record at least 13 strikeouts without issuing a walk. He also became the first Yankee since Max Fried in September 2025 to reach 13 strikeouts in a game. Fried did it against Baltimore.

Schlittler’s previous regular-season best was nine strikeouts, though he fanned 12 in Game 3 of last year’s Wild Card Series against Boston. Against Cincinnati, he got to double digits by punching out Eugenio Suarez to end the fourth and finished the job by striking out JJ Bleday in the sixth.

How He Did It

Schlittler generated 18 whiffs on 49 swings, relying heavily on his sinker, four-seam fastball and cutter. He hit leadoff man Blake Dunn with the first pitch of the game but settled in fast, recording multiple strikeouts in each of the first five innings. The Reds had no answer.

The win pushed New York to 16-6 in their last 22 games and 10-5 since Aaron Judge fractured his right rib. Schlittler improved to 8-3 on the season after entering the game winless in his previous three starts. He looked nothing like a guy who’d been struggling.

The Bats Showed Up Too

Jazz Chisholm Jr. returned to the lineup and hit his 11th home run of the season, a solo shot in the second. Ben Rice followed with a 433-foot, three-run homer, his team-leading 21st of the year. Rice now sits third in the AL in home runs and second in MLB with a .616 slugging percentage and a 1.005 OPS.

Anthony Volpe added an RBI single in the eighth. Jake Bird, Brent Headrick and David Bednar each threw a scoreless inning to close it out. It was the Yankees’ eighth shutout of the season.

Schlittler’s cutter was nearly unhittable. The Reds swung and missed 12 times on that pitch alone. And the guy doesn’t even turn 26 until later this month.