The Red Sox Had A Chance To Beat Cam Schlittler And Take Game One Against The Yankees And Instead They No-Showed A Playoff Game

The Red Sox just no-showed a playoff game. 

Hubbs will write about Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice, and as a Yankee fan in Italy, I'd probably do the same thing. In fact, he already did. 

This blog will be about the team that just didn't show up in Game 1 of the American League Wild Card Series. 

Three hits. 

Four base runners. 

No runners to third base. 

What a joke. 

Giphy Images.

This is a laugher. I 100% bought into the Red Sox clinching early and getting a chance to prep for the Yankees. I even bought into the team using the Rays Trajekt system over the weekend in Tampa to lock in on Schlittler. 

Yeah, it didn't help. Maybe it had the wrong settings? 

What an absolute shit game. No silver linings in there whatsoever. 

Payton Tolle is a good pitcher and was good Tuesday, but not good enough. But I put very little of the blame on the 23-year-old starting pitcher. 

I'll put some blame on manager Chad Tracy, who picked a bad time to pull Tolle. Erik Miller came in and promptly gave up a solo shot to Ben Rice to make it a 2-0 game. Tracy did very little to help the Red Sox Tuesday night. And if you want to say that taking out Tolle when he did, and the resulting home run, changed the game, it's hard to disagree. 

But after that, most importantly, you can blame the players. Well, the offense. I guess Adley Rutschman had a good AB early. But after that? Nothing. Just nothing. Lifeless. 

I thought coming into the series that Roman Anthony was clearly the most important player for the Red Sox. He went 0-2 with a pair of strikeouts before leaving the game with a hand injury. Leaving the Stadium early does not make me confident we'll see him again this season. 

The Sox have been bad on offense for a while, and I thought once they got healthy, it wouldn't matter. Tuesday did nothing to make me look right about that. 

If this game felt like Game 3 in 2025, it should have. At least last year there were some dumb plays and decisions that you could point to costing the Red Sox in close games in that series. In Game 1? It was a system-wide failure of epic proportions. 

The Red Sox got outclassed in the Bronx. 

The series isn't over yet, but the numbers aren't good. Teams that have won the first game of these best-of-threes since 2022 have gone on to win 15 of 16 series. 

Truthfully? I really like the potential pitching matchup for the Sox in Game 3. Ranger Suárez has been a stud in the playoffs, and the Sox have owned Gerrit Cole. If the Sox can get it to Game 3, I'd like their chances. 

But they need to wake the fuck up after a lifeless no-show in Game 1 if there is any chance of that happening. That was brutal.