Cam Schlittler's Red Sox-killing, record-setting performance was 22 years in the making

For the 24 hours following the New York Yankees' dramatic Game 2 victory over the Boston Red Sox, plenty of ink was spilled on the novelty of left-hander Connelly Early taking the mound for his fifth MLB start in a win-or-go-home game against his team's chief rival. Of course people fluffed up Early. It was remarkable, after all, and the Red Sox have been the team that's won these massive rivalry games for the past 22 years, ever since Aaron Boone's home run caught the second deck in left field to end the ALCS. They have the edge. Of course they do. Early would become legend, and the rest of the men on the field would disappear in his wake.

But they forgot about Cam Schlittler. He was making his 15th start. Single digits are single digits, but there was another green fireballer involved in this story, and he had the last word.

Schlittler's start, from the beginning, was a dreamlike trance. The Red Sox barely threatened. The Red Sox barely touched the baseball. It was all fastballs. They pushed one runner to second base in totality.

As the flamethrowing newborn icon ticked past 100 pitches and put an exclamation point on his outing — or so we thought — Boone mouthed to him that he'd be heading back out for the eighth. Not only did he handle the assignment, but he tacked on a 12th strikeout of Romy Gonzalez to extend the all-time Yankee playoff debut record, then recorded two outs on two pitches. Ryan McMahon's stunning, tumbling play was the game's high point, and Trevor Story took a weak hack and rolled over the first pitch he saw. He wanted to go home. They all did.

Yankees' Cam Schlittler posts all-time masterpiece to send Red Sox packing in Wild Card series

Schlittler didn't just etch his name in Yankee history on Thursday night. He became the first pitcher in MLB history to go eight innings or more, strike out 12 or more, walk none, and keep the goose egg on the scoreboard. That had never happened before. Schlittler's 15th career start, in a decision-making game in the biggest rivalry in baseball — against his hometown team — was the game in which it happened. That may well have been the greatest start of all time.

There was a moment this summer where the Yankees were rumored to be pursuing Eugenio Suarez to fill their third base vacancy. Arizona, driving a hard bargain, wanted Schlittler in the package, just a few starts into his MLB career. Should the Yankees have considered flipping the kid, bringing power into the picture, and trading for a different veteran arm to fill the rotation?

Instead, they traded for Ryan McMahon and kept Schlittler. Without those two, the Red Sox's 22-year run of dominance following the Boone Game is still intact. Instead, this now becomes the Boone Game. The night Boone went out of his comfort zone and let the kid pitch, and was rewarded with several slices of history.