Ranger Suarez and Walpole’s Cam Schlittler are a contrast in styles, but both pitcher effective

NEW YORK — The Red Sox-Yankees game on Sunday afternoon provided a textbook example of how two pitchers can stand on the same mound and do the same job in entirely different ways.

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If Red Sox starter Ranger Suarez broke a sweat on an 81-degree day at Yankee Stadium, it wasn’t evident. He flipped pitches to the plate with seemingly the same effort as dealing a hand of cards.

Suarez’s fastest pitch was a 92.9 miles per hour fastball to Trent Grisham in the fourth inning. In all, only eight of his 90 pitches broke 92. Suarez changed angles and speeds like he had a joystick in his glove.

Yankees starter Cam Schlittler threw 83 of his 92 pitches with greater velocity than Suarez’s fastest pitch. Outside of seven curveballs, everything was some variation of a fastball. The 25-year-old righthander from Walpole pitched with ferocity, Suarez with finesse.

Both styles were rewarded. Suarez allowed one run on six hits over 6⅓ innings. He struck out six without a walk. Schlittler was done after 5⅔ innings and allowed one run on four hits with one walk and five strikeouts.

The two starters were long gone when the game was decided in the bottom of the eighth inning, when the Yankees scored five runs off the Red Sox bullpen to secure a 6-1 victory.

Justin Slaten, who had a perfect four-pitch eighth inning in Friday’s 5-3 victory, was charged with four of the runs. Cody Bellinger started it with a solo homer. Jazz Chisholm then cracked a three-run homer on the first pitch lefty Joe La Sorsa threw as a member of the Red Sox.

La Sorsa, 28, pitched all season in Triple-A for the Pirates before he was purchased by the Sox on Thursday, then replaced Brayan Bello on the roster on Friday.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone appreciated the duel between the starters for as long as it lasted, particularly the contrast in styles.

“There’s a lot of ways to do it,” he said. “I thought Ranger did a really good job of using his four-seam [fastball] and two-seam [fastball] with the lefties. He kind of stayed unpredictable there.”

That he didn’t get the victory was meaningless for Schlittler. He lasted only 4⅓ innings in his previous start, allowing four earned runs against the Guardians. He needed a bounce-back.

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“I think the velo was there. I think the movement was a little bit better. Still a little sloppy with strike percentage,” Schlittler said. “Definitely better than last week.”

Schlittler said his adjustments over the last few days were more footwork-related with how he lifted his leg and drove down the mound.

“Not great today, but definitely headed in the right direction, he said.

The only run he allowed came on a two-out double by Willson Contreras in the sixth inning. That scored Ceddanne Rafaela from first.

That Schlitter defined one run over 5⅔ innings as not good enough speaks to his high standards. He has a 1.87 earned run average through 14 starts this season, and the Yankees have won 10 of those games.

“Maybe a little crisper,” Boone said. “Thought his stuff was good, and everything was a factor for him.”

Suarez allowed his run in the fifth inning, on a two-out single by Paul Goldschmidt.

“That’s part of the game,” Suarez said via a translator. “There’s sometimes you get hit hard, but right at people and like [Sunday] you get weak contact and [the ball] finds the ground. It’s part of the game.”

Schlittler has faced the Red Sox three times in his career, counting the Wild Card Series last season. He has allowed two earned runs on 13 hits over 21⅔ innings with 22 strikeouts and two walks.

Selecting Schlittler in the seventh round of the 2022 draft out of Northeastern has proven to be a rivalry-changing decision by the Yankees.

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It was again on Sunday.