Schlittler Dominates, Yankees Explode in 10th to Sink Angels
Cam Schlittler threw 8.0 innings of two-hit, one-run ball with 9 strikeouts, and the Yankees backed him up with a four-run 10th inning to beat the Angels 6-3 on September 3. The story of the night was how thoroughly New York dismantled a game Reid Detmers outing with a single chaotic frame.
For nine innings, this looked like a pitchers' duel worth savoring. Schlittler was untouchable — 8.0 innings, 2 hits, 1 earned run, 0 walks, 9 strikeouts. Detmers matched the energy: 7.0 innings, 6 hits, 1 earned run, 0 walks, 8 strikeouts. The lone early scoring came in the 4th, when Rosario hit a ground rule double to score Bellinger and put New York up 1-0. The Angels answered in the 7th when Grissom launched a 408-foot shot to center to tie it at 1. Through nine, both starters had done everything asked of them. The game felt like it could go either way.
Then the 10th inning happened, and it happened fast. Wells singled to right, scoring Caballero and Rosario to make it 3-1 — that single swing sent the Angels' win probability crashing from 60% to 16%, a 44-point collapse in one at-bat. The floodgates didn't close there. Bellinger singled to center to score Chisholm Jr. Grisham singled to left to score Wells. Rice singled to right to score Bellinger. Four consecutive singles, four runs, and a 6-1 lead before the Angels could exhale. Bellinger finished 3-for-5 with 2 runs scored and an RBI. Wells went 2-for-2 with 2 RBI. It appears the Angels' bullpen simply had no answers once the lineup turned over in extras.
Los Angeles made it cosmetically interesting in the bottom of the 10th. Ballesteros hit a 391-foot homer to right, scoring Meckler to pull it to 6-3. But David Bednar closed it out with a clean inning — 1 hit, 0 runs, 3 strikeouts — and that was that. Grissom's two-hit, one-homer night was the bright spot for an Angels offense that looks like it ran out of answers the moment the game extended. Schlittler's line is the kind that deserves more attention than a 6-3 final score typically generates — eight innings, two hits, nine punchouts is a performance, full stop. New York got the win it needed, and it wasn't close by the time the dust settled.