ST. PETERSBURG — With Aaron Judge sidelined since Sept. 16 with a right calf strain, the New York Yankees are turning to their next generation to stay alive in October. The Tampa Bay Rays won Game 1 of the American League Division Series 1-0 on Saturday behind Drew Rasmussen, who struck out 10 and held New York to one hit — the fewest in the Yankees' 447 postseason games — and teams that win Game 1 of a best-of-five win the series about 73% of the time. New York will try to answer Monday night at Tropicana Field in Game 2.
The Yankees will hand the ball to Cam Schlittler, a seventh-round pick out of Northeastern in 2022 who led the American League with a 1.95 ERA while going 14-6 with 239 strikeouts in 193 2/3 innings. Only Spud Chandler in 1943 and Ron Guidry in 1978 posted a lower ERA for the Yankees as qualified starters. He joins fellow draft products Ben Rice, a 12th-rounder out of Dartmouth in 2021 with the 363rd pick, Spencer Jones, the 25th overall pick out of Vanderbilt in 2022, and George Lombard Jr., the 26th overall pick out of Gulliver Prep in 2023. All four were drafted by vice president and director of amateur scouting Damon Oppenheimer, who has run the draft since 2005 and also took Judge 32nd overall out of Fresno State in 2013. "I think it's been a very gratifying couple of weeks for our player development, and deservedly so," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said during a Zoom call Sunday.
"In a season where we've been beat up and banged up, we've had answers," Boone said, crediting Kevin Reese's player development staff for turning the picks into big leaguers. Rice has been the loudest answer. He went 4-for-5 in the wild-card opener against the Boston Red Sox with a double, a solo homer and an eighth-inning grand slam, his six RBI tying the franchise postseason record as he became the first Yankees player with four hits and six RBIs in a playoff game. Boone joked Sunday he almost pinch-hit Giancarlo Stanton for Rice right before the slam. Northeast area scout Matt Hyde found Rice playing summer ball for the Worcester Bravehearts in the Futures League, not at Dartmouth, and this July Rice was an All-Star with 29 homers at the break and swung in the Home Run Derby.
Schlittler backed Rice in that wild-card opener, striking out 10 over 6 1/3 scoreless innings against Boston. Both grew up in Massachusetts and played college ball in New England. In Game 2 of the wild-card series against the Red Sox, Jones became the first player in postseason history to score in an inning he started and ended, reaching on a dropped third strike in the sixth, stealing second, taking third on a throwing error and scoring on Lombard's single before striking out to end the six-run inning. Jones hit 35 homers between Double-A and Triple-A in 2025, second most in the minors, and wasn't called up until May; his first big-league homer June 9 left the bat at 112.2 miles per hour, the hardest-hit first homer by a Yankees player in the Statcast era. Lombard, the 21-year-old son of former big-leaguer George Lombard who was a high school shortstop in Miami three summers ago, debuted Aug. 4 and hit .237 with seven homers and 22 RBIs, and on Sept. 24 against the Rays he jumped over the catcher to score on a pitch that got away and then hit a go-ahead two-run homer into the second deck.
"He loves the game, which I think is always impressive," Boone said of Lombard. "Like he loves the stuff that's not sexy, the behind the scenes, the grind the routine." Boone said Lombard impressed him most in how he handled a bad week early on. Schlittler will face Freddy Peralta on Monday, the AL Pitcher of the Month for September who Tampa Bay acquired from the Mets on Aug. 2. Boone said Tropicana Field really accentuates a good four-seam fastball and that the Rays have tweaked Peralta's mix so he uses his changeup "a good bit" after Rasmussen's 8-inning gem lifted the Rays past the Yankees 1-0 in ALDS Game 1.