Hour 2: Cam Pitching

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Michael Kay (0:41)

Welcome back to the show. So it becomes a very important game tonight for the Yankees after they lose game one on Saturday. One nothing, this is game two. So the way the American League Division Series are, you can use your bullpen every single game. There's a lot of off days. So there's an off day between game one and two. And then after this game, there's an off day tomorrow. And then they'll play two games in a row on Wednesday and Thursday, games three and four Yankees dating. But tonight it's Schlitler against Peralta. And the way this was set up, the Yankees love having Schlitler pitch two and possibly a game five because they're both on the road. He has 23 career road starts since he came into the big leagues last year. He has a 1.52 ERA on the road. That's, get this, this is an amazing stat. That's the lowest by any pitcher in the past 113 years. Think of that. The lowest ERA of any pitcher in the last 113 years on the road. And there's a lot of reasons why he could pitch, and he pitches well at Yankee Stadium too. Don't get me wrong. But he seems so locked in on the road. This guy likes adversity. This guy thrives on pressure. This guy thrives on, like, a game three last year or if he lost to his hometown Red Sox. The season would have been over for the Yankees. He would have never heard the end of it when he went back home for the winter. And all he did was shove. Eight innings, 12 strikeouts, no walks, no runs. He loves perceived slights. He loves to get booed. It's going to happen tonight. And by the way, all those that thought that Yankee fans were going to overrun the trap, they didn't. There were Yankee fans in there, but the vast majority of the over 40,000 people, they did take the tarp off the upper deck. They were Rays fans. And that was a home field advantage for the Rays. But that's not going to bother Schlittler. That's just not how he rolls.

This year on the road, 17 games started, eight and two, check this out, an ERA of 1.16.

That's the fifth best in one season. In Major League history.

In Major League history, 1.16. Now, I'm going to give you some negatives. Cam strikes out a lot of people. He had 239 strikeouts this year. And he strikes out 31.4 percent of the batters he faces, which is fourth best. But the Rays are the most difficult team to strike out. They strike out 18.8 percent of the time, which is the lowest of any team in baseball.

Of any team of baseball. For instance, in game one, against Cole and the Yankee Relievers, they put 25 balls in play and struck out just five times.

Now, this year against Tampa Bay, Cam has 21 strikeouts and 16 in his pitch, which is good, right? But an ERA of 2.81. Now, as a guy who's ERA for the season was 1.95.

So three quarters of a run more, the Ray score against him than anybody else, than anybody else.

So what they want to do with Schlittler is not strikeout. Foul ball, foul ball. This is what Toronto did last year to him. And what you do is you build up pitch count, and you hope that he's out of the game in the sixth inning, and you take a chance against the Yankee bullpen. So his road prowess is really hard to ignore. But the fact that he strikes out so many people, and the Razor team that simply doesn't strikeout, also not easy to ignore. Now Peralta, after the bad first start he made with Tampa Bay, last nine starts 2.26 ERA. So in 22 games with the Mets, and then that one with Tampa Bay, 5.37.

This is a guy who is not overpowering like Rasmussen. But when he's on, you've got to deal, they call him Fastball Freddy, you got to deal with his fastball, which is 98 miles an hour, and his change up, which could get people out. I think this is a game where Schlitler could dominate, and I don't think that they're going to beat up on Peralta, but they can score on Peralta. I don't think they're going to be one hit over eight innings by Freddie Peralta. If they are, well, then the season is very close to ending. Very close to ending. He works from the stretch, doesn't do the wind up, throws a good fastball. We'll see how the Yankees do. We'll see what lineup they run out there. But pitching advantage in this game? I mean, anybody he would face in the American League, even Rasmussen, I'd say pitching advantage goes to Cam Schlitler.