ST. PETERSBURG – Coming off the roughest outing of his young career thus far, Cam Schlittler almost marveled, remarking on that night at Yankee Stadium: “I’ve got to say, it’s taken a while to experience an outing like that.”
That shaky effort against the Tigers fueled Schlittler’s drive over the past week, ensuring there would be no repeat performance. The American League All-Star returned to form on Monday night, hurling eight innings of one-run ball in the Yankees’ 5-1 victory over the Rays at Tropicana Field.
With his velocity inching up to touch triple digits, Schlittler allowed four hits, walking none and striking out eight. He threw 101 pitches, 72 for strikes.
Schlittler initially kept pace with Tampa Bay starter Griffin Jax, who retired the first 13 batters he faced.
Jax surrendered a pair of one-out walks that preceded José Caballero’s three-run homer in the fifth inning, which the former Rays utility player punctuated with a one-handed bat toss.
From there, Schlittler made the lead hold up. Richie Palacios touched Schlittler for a run-scoring single in the fifth, but otherwise, the Rays had a difficult time putting bat to ball.
Caballero added a second homer in the eighth off Chris Roycroft, setting a career high with 10 blasts.
In his previous start against the Tigers, Schlittler surrendered a career-high six runs over four innings, including four homers.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he believed the lessons of that outing could provide some “edge” to help keep Schlittler sharp.
“One of the things I love about him is, he loves the challenge and he loves the competition,” Boone said before the game. “I'm sure there is a little bit of an extra [motivation], knowing he didn't perform as well as he normally does.”