Once, the Yankees had Ron Guidry, out of their farm system, a left-hander skinny as an exclamation point and known as Louisiana Lightning. At his best, Guidry was the best homegrown power starter they ever had. He won 16 games as a rookie, at the age of 26. And became a phenom after that.
In his second season, in 1978, Guidry was an exclamation point in all ways: A 25-3 record, a 1.74 ERA and ... wait for it ... nine shutouts. He made 35 starts and struck out 248 batters in 273 2/3 innings, and when Bob Lemon, his manager, needed a starter for the Bucky Dent playoff game at Fenway Park, Guidry told him he would take the ball. No Yankee starter ever had a year as good or as dominant across the board as that.
Now, all this time later, there is Cam Schlittler, a right-hander coming out of the Yankee farm system with that kind of arm and a fastball that seems to be getting better as he goes. Schlittler burst upon the scene, really, over the second half of last season, a little younger at 24 than Guidry was when he first arrived at Yankee Stadium bringing all this heat with him.
Guidry won a Cy Young Award in his second season. Right now, seeing what we’re seeing from Schlittler -- 4-1 record, 1.51 ERA, 49 strikeouts in 41 2/3 innings -- he has some chance to do the same, if not this season, then soon. Very soon.
There have been other kid fastball pitchers for the Yankees, of course, since Ron Guidry. There was a time when Joba Chamberlain looked as if he was going to be a rock star before he faded. Luis Severino absolutely had a minute as a young Yankee. Before them, Andy Pettitte became a total star in pinstripes, and especially an October star, after showing up at Yankee Stadium in the 1990s with the rest of Joe Torre’s Yankees.
But Pettitte was a different kind of pitcher, with as much arm as he had. He won an awful lot of games and an awful lot of big games -- how about that 1-0 game he started against John Smoltz in Game 5 of the ’96 World Series? -- but Pettitte didn’t blow people away the way Guidry did and the way Schlittler is doing right now.
It was last October, remember, when he won the biggest game of the Yankees' season, in their best-of-three American League Wild Card Series against the Red Sox in Game 3: 12 strikeouts in eight scoreless innings in a game the Yankees finally won 4-0. It went in with all of the dominant October pitching performances the Yankees have seen since Don Larsen’s perfect game in the ’56 Series. Schlittler was that good that night, “electric” in the words of opposing manager Alex Cora.
Now, Schlittler has picked right up where he left off, becoming the ace of the Yankees' staff while they wait for Gerrit Cole, another Yankee Cy Young winner, to join the season after Tommy John surgery a year ago.
On Tuesday, Schlittler went up against Jacob deGrom, who was 25 when he first became a regular in the Mets’ rotation (and didn’t look like the best pitcher in the whole sport until he was nearly 30). It is a fact that deGrom, who will turn 38 this season and has had years of arm troubles since he was the big arm striking out the world, is still something to see. But Schlittler was better in Texas this past week, and more of a show, throwing six shutout innings and lowering his ERA a little more.
Before that game, Schlittler -- a Walpole, Mass., kid who grew up a half-hour from the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park -- went into Fenway and beat the Red Sox again. Afterward manager Aaron Boone talked about “an ace-like performance.” Schlittler has pitched like that since the Yankees’ stretch run last season, even in the same rotation with Max Fried. Everybody in baseball is talking now about the variety of fastballs in his arsenal, and they ought to be, because Schlittler can throw all of them in the upper 90s.
Aaron Judge spoke admiringly after the Schlittler-deGrom matchup about how his guy had gone “toe-to-toe” with a future Hall of Famer. The Rangers didn’t rough up Schlittler because hardly anybody has this season. His start days are becoming baseball events for Yankee fans the way the Mets had Jacob deGrom Day when he had the kind of stuff that everybody wanted to see, and other hitters couldn’t hit.
The Yankees once brought Roger Clemens to New York in the late innings of his career, and Clemens still had enough arm and enough fastball to strike out 15 Mariners in a one-hit shutout in the 2000 AL Championship Series. They signed Cole and watched him win the first Cy Young for the team since Guidry. But again: Schlittler is one of their own the way Guidry was one of their own. And has done the same thing Guidry did 50 years ago: Become a pitching phenom after getting to the big leagues in his mid-20s.
Schlittler is scheduled to go again on Monday against the Orioles. Not Cap Day. Cam Day at Yankee Stadium.