Cam Schlittler deals, Yankees offense erupts in 10–5 win over the Nationals

New York—The Yankees won game one of this three-game series 10-5 over the Washington Nationals. Cam Schlittler got the start for the Yankees and faced off against Brad Lord.

In the top of the first inning, Cam worked around a one-out single and recorded his first strikeout of the night on a 100.6 mph fastball, the fastest pitch of Cam's young career. 

Ben Rice worked a one-out walk in the bottom of the first inning, and Aaron Judge followed that up with a walk of his own. A passed ball then allowed Judge and Rice to move into scoring position. Cody Bellinger drove in Rice with a sacrifice fly to give the Yankees an early 1-0 lead. 

Paul Goldschmidt led off the bottom of the second inning with a double into the right field corner. However, Jasson Dominguez and Ryan McMahon both flew out, then José Caballero popped out to waste a leadoff double. 

In the bottom of the third inning, Rice launched the longest home run of his young career, 435 feet away, his 21st of the year, to make it a 2-0 game. 

Cam worked around back-to-back one-out singles in the top of the fourth inning with some help from Rice, who made a perfect throw to gun down Josh Bell trying to steal second base. 

"That was big. I mean, he bailed me out a little bit," Cam said on Rice, throwing out Bell. "I'm not sure what the plan was with them doing that. But great shoot by Benny there, and a good tag by Jazz. So definitely, definitely a good feeling."

Cam picked up three strikeouts in the top of the fifth to help work around a two-out walk and put his punchout total up to seven for the ballgame. 

In the bottom of the fifth inning, Cabellero and Trent Grisham picked up back-to-back singles. Rice then flew out to center, allowing Cabellero to move up to third. Judge followed that up with an RBI ground rule double to make it a 3-0 game. The next batter, Belli, came through with a two-run single to make it a 5-0 ballgame. Then Jazz Chisholm Jr. launched a two-run bomb into the second deck with an elite bat flip, his 25th of the season, a new career high, his first in over a month since July 23 in Toronto, to break this game wide open at 7-0. 

Cam gave up a leadoff single in the top of the sixth, followed by a walk, but picked up a strikeout and induced a 4-6-3 double play to help work into and out of trouble. 

Yerry De Los Santos took over for Cam on the mound in the top half of the seventh inning and worked a 1-2-3 inning with a couple of strikeouts. 

Cam Schlittler's final line: Six innings pitched, four hits allowed, zero runs, three walks, 13 swings and misses, and eight strikeouts on 96 pitches. Cam threw his fastball 53% of the time, the cutter 23%, the curveball 18%, and the sinker 6% of the time. Cam was nasty yet again, as he is starting to look like a future potential ace; his ERA is now down to 2.76. 

"Just important for me to go out there and continue to do my job," Cam said. "And like I said last week, try to get to six, seven innings and put the team in a spot to win." 

"I mean, he's been electric, man. Shoot, it's been crazy to really watch," Jazz said on Cam. "It just reminds me of when Max Fried first got over here, you know, and Max was just doing his thing, watching him come out here as a rookie and doing what he does, man, it was just amazing." 

In the bottom of the seventh inning, Jazz worked a two-out walk, and Goldy followed that up with a bloop single. The next batter, Jasson Dominguez, launched a three-run home run, his 10th of the year, to make it 10-0. 

De Los Santos remained in the game for the top of the eighth inning and worked around a two-out single, picking up a strikeout in the process to work a scoreless inning. 

De Los Santos stayed in the game for the top of the ninth inning and walked a batter with bases loaded to make it a 10-1. Mark Leiter Jr. replaced De Los Santos with two outs and the bases loaded and served up a grand slam into the Yankees bullpen to Jacob Young to make it a 10-5 game. Leiter then picked up a strikeout to finally end this one. 

The Yankees will look to win the series tomorrow with Luis Gil on the mound, facing off against MacKenzie Gore. The first pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. ET on the YES Network. 

My thoughts on the game: Cam was dominant yet again as he now has a 1.63 ERA in August across five starts with 31 strikeouts. De Los Santos was solid until the ninth inning when he ran out of gas. The offense was awesome as all nine starters had a hit tonight. Dominguez, Jazz, and Rice all launched home runs, accounting for six of the Yankees' runs. Judge had an RBI double, and Belli had three RBIs. On to tomorrow as the Yankees will look to win the series.