Cam Schlittler is a new Yankees hero and the 49ers slay me on Thursday Night Football

Cam Schlittler is this newest Yankees postseason hero after his incredibly clutch performance to shut down the Red Sox and lead the Yankees to a 4-0 victory in Game 3 of their Wild Card series. It was Schlittler’s first ever postseason start, and he hadn’t gone longer than seven innings in any major league outing before, but that didn’t stop him from pitching eight shutout innings against Boston with 12 strikeouts and no walks.

The Yankees scored four runs in the fourth inning when Cody Bellinger set the table with a double and Amed Rosario, Jazz Chisholm Jr., and Anthony Volpe followed with consecutive singles. The Red Sox had a chance to get a double play and stop the bleeding with two runs in, but Austin Wells’ ground ball was botched by Nathaniel Lowe and two more runs came in. That proved to be more than enough with Schlittler channeling Roger Clemens, and the Bombers cruised to a series-clinching win.

I’m happy for Yankees fans who got a huge win over their archrival, but I’m also happy for Mets fans because we still have that Offseason Champions banner that no one can ever take away. For years, we told ourselves that if we just had Yankees money bankrolling our team’s baseball operation, we too could be world champions. Now that the Mets signed Juan Soto away from the Bronx, it’s time to admit that the Yankees are just a better run organization, no matter who the owner is. Over the past few years, Yankees fans have complained endlessly about how incompetent skipper Aaron Boone and general manager Brian Cashman are, but they still took their team to 94 wins and a Wild Card series victory in the season after losing Soto.

It’s not like Soto had a bad year for the Mets. Far from it. But he’s still only one man. The fate of the Mets and Yankees this year is another example of how depth is more important in baseball than any other sport. At the start of the season, it looked like the Mets had starting pitching depth, but it melted away over the summer like a popsicle while the Yankees still had Max Fried, Carlos Rodon, and Schlittler to rely on.

In other Wild Card elimination action, the Tigers got a huge tiebreaking home run from Dillon Dingler and rallied for four runs in the seventh inning to post a 6-3 victory at Cleveland and effectively erase their epic regular season collapse. I always thought that the Mets were destined to lose their 2022 Wild Card series to the Padres because of the way they fell apart in September and fumbled away the NL East title. It turns out that a little grit can reverse a team’s fortune very quickly in the Postseason. You have to give A.J. Hinch credit for not allowing his team to wallow in misery following a very disappointing September. The Tigers grinded out two wins in three days and have retaken their spot in the ALDS.

The Cubs didn’t have much of a chance to win their division this season, but they are also headed to a Division Series thanks to another low-scoring win over the Padres. Chicago loaded the bases in the second inning off of San Diego starter Yu Darvish and got a Pete Crow-Armstrong single and a Dansby Swanson walk to plate a pair of runs. The Padres put the tying run in scoring position in the fifth when Freddy Fermin doubled off of Danny Palencia, but Fernando Tatis Jr. harmlessly flew out to right, allowing the Chicago bullpen to flourish in a series that has been a battle of magnificent bullpens.

San Diego threated again in the ninth with Brad Keller allowing a solo shot to Jackson Merrill and then hitting both Ryan O’Hearn and Bryce Johnson with pitches, but Andrew Kittredge ended the threat to send the Cubs to Milwaukee for an NLDS battle with the little brother Brewers. Just like with Cleveland this year and Philadelphia last year, the division champ has most of the pressure in a series like this. Milwaukee was the better team all season, but that doesn’t matter much if it loses three games to Chicago. It will be fun to see if the champs can prove themselves in head-to-head baseball combat.

As if three do-or-die baseball games weren’t enough, there was also a thrilling NFL game on Thursday night, and it drove me insane. I had the Rams in my survivor pools and to cover the spread in pick ’em. That turned out to be a massive failure even though Los Angeles stormed back from a 20-7 third-quarter deficit and tied the score early in the fourth. It should have been a one-point lead for the Rams over the 49ers, but Josh Karty had his extra point blocked after Matthew Stafford found Kyren Williams for the eight-yard equalizing score.

Still, the Rams had all the momentum and the superior players. Surely they would find a way to pull this one out at home? Nope. Their defense stopped San Francisco on the Los Angeles 41-yard line, but Eddy Pineiro connected on a 59-yard field goal because no one ever misses a kick that long when I need them to. The Rams had three minutes to come back, and it looked like a certainty when they marched down to the three-yard line without even facing a second down, but Williams had the ball punched from his grasp by Alfred Collins as he plowed towards the end zone, and Collins fell on the ball as well for a game-changing turnover.

It would have been heartbreaking enough if that was the end of the game, but the Rams teased us again by stuffing the 49ers for a three-and-out while using three timeouts to keep 53 seconds on the clock. After a San Francisco punt to midfield, Stafford’s clutch pass to Williams on 4th and 3 set up Karty for the game-tying field goal that sent the game to overtime.

The 49ers got the ball first and their offense was looking hot until the Rams finally sacked Mac Jones for the first time all game. Pineiro was good from 41 yards to give San Francisco the lead, but the Rams once again put themselves in position for the win when Stafford hit Tutu Atwell for 38 yards to the 20-yard line. Three plays later, though, Williams was stuffed on 4th and 1 to end the game. Going for the first down was the right move, as a field goal would have almost certainly led to a tie or loss for the Rams. It just sucked to see Williams, who had 131 yards and a pair of receiving touchdowns on the night, come up short in another huge spot.

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