Last October, Cam Schlittler walked into Yankee Stadium and threw eight shutout innings against the Boston Red Sox in a winner-take-all playoff game.
He struck out 12, he didn't walk a soul, and his fastball hit 100.8 mph.
Turns out there is one thing that can rattle the kid – and it showed up in his locker Sunday morning.
Nobody Believed He'd Be Here
The Yankees took Schlittler in the seventh round of the 2022 draft out of Northeastern University – a small school in Boston where he'd been dominant but invisible to most scouts.
When he arrived in Tampa, his fastball sat at 89 mph.
He didn't complain. He didn't demand a fast track.
He overhauled his diet, put in serious work in the weight room, and rebuilt his fastball grip from scratch with the Yankees' pitching staff.
He added 20 pounds of muscle and put in the kind of work that doesn't make headlines until it's October and you're watching someone throw 100 mph in the Bronx.
https://twitter.com/FoxNewsSports_/status/2033555733753798786?s=20
Three years after nobody wanted him in the top six rounds, Schlittler became the first pitcher in MLB postseason history to throw eight innings, strike out 12, and walk nobody while allowing zero runs.
Gerrit Cole – who'd watched the whole season from the injured list – walked over during the handshake line and pushed the kid to the front.
"That was his game, man," Cole said.
The Toughest Opponent of Spring Training Had Eight Legs
Before the Yankees faced the Detroit Tigers on Sunday at Steinbrenner Field, Yankees reporter Meredith Marakovits broke the story via YES Network.
There was a spider in Schlittler's locker.
Yankees security was dispatched.
The spider was extracted. Order was restored in Tampa.
Schlittler posted the update on X with the calm of a man who just closed out a save: "A spider was successfully extracted from my locker today. Best security team in the league!"
https://twitter.com/Cam31Schlittler/status/2033253518719525302?s=20
He is correct.
You can spend $218 million on Max Fried and stack a rotation with the best arms in baseball – but none of that matters if the locker room falls to the arachnids. The Yankees handled the threat with precision.
For what it's worth, Florida wolf spiders are genuinely imposing creatures – big, quick, built for the hunt. Whatever was in that locker, Schlittler made the right call.
The Arm That Has the AL East on Notice
This spring Schlittler has been untouchable – 1.50 ERA, 10 strikeouts, two wins in two starts.
He has also spent the offseason adding a weapon.
His cutter now sits at 96 mph, and Aaron Boone has already taken notice. "It's nasty," Boone said. "Just standing behind him, it's kind of wicked. If he can get the consistency of that curveball, the three fastballs with the curveball – then he gets pretty tough to deal with."
Four pitches. All of them moving. All of them thrown by a kid who arrived in pro ball as an afterthought.
Schlittler is scheduled to start the Yankees' second game of the season on March 27 against the San Francisco Giants.
Cole and Carlos Rodón are both working back from surgery and won't be available until late April or May at the earliest.
That puts Schlittler as the No. 2 arm in the most competitive division in baseball – a job he was never supposed to have.
He earned it the old-fashioned way.
When the full rotation is healthy – Fried, Cole, Rodón, and Schlittler – analysts are already calling it one of the most dangerous top fours in the sport.
The kid from Walpole, Massachusetts, the seventh-round pick nobody believed in, is a cornerstone of it.
He just needs someone else to handle the spiders.
Sources:
- Ryan Gaydos, "Yankees' Cam Schlittler calls security to remove spider from locker," Fox News, March 16, 2026.
- Jorge Castillo, "MLB playoffs 2025: Yankees rookie Cam Schlittler meets the moment, delivers performance for the ages in Game 3 win over Red Sox," Yahoo Sports, October 3, 2025.
- "Big Lift For Yankees Rotation As Cole, Rodon Near Game Action," Pinstripesnation.com, February 12, 2026.
- "Cam Schlittler – New York Yankees," MLB.com player bio.
- "Spider-Man, Cam Schlittler Is Not," ClutchPoints, March 15, 2026.