If being mired in last place while the visiting New York Yankees are in first weren’t infuriating enough for Boston Red Sox fans, consider this: The two youngsters whose breakout seasons are lighting up the Bronx were born and raised minutes from Fenway Park.
On the mound, Walpole, Massachusetts’ own Cam Schlittler is the early American League Cy Young favorite in his first full major league season. In the lineup, Ben Rice — from Cohasset — is posting MVP-level production in his third big league campaign. Both grew up attending games in the shadow of the Green Monster, though with different rooting interests: Schlittler was a Red Sox fan while Rice braved cheering for their archnemesis.
Years later, they both love trying to beat the Red Sox.
“It’s unspoken for the most part, but whenever we’re playing Boston we’re like, ‘Hey, let’s go!'” Rice said before his team’s four-game weekend series against the Red Sox. “We joke about it every now and then.”
Schlittler, 25, grew up idolizing the Red Sox during their turnaround from cursed operation to four-time World Series champions. He loved David Ortiz, Mookie Betts, Chris Sale, Dustin Pedroia, Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez. He wore Jonathan Papelbon, Clay Buchholz and Xander Bogaerts jerseys. He walked the five minutes from campus to Fenway for games while in college. But that fandom vanished the second the Yankees took him with the 220th pick in 2022.
“I mean, you grow up and you’re taught to just hate the Yankees,” Schlittler said. “You don’t really have a reason why. It’s just like what you’re supposed to do.
“I’m a big sports guy, but it wasn’t really the end of the world for me. When it came to [being drafted by the Yankees], I really didn’t care about being a Sox fan. I was thinking about my career and how we can make the most out of that. I knew, at least on the development side, on the pitching side, the Yankees had a really good reputation. I think at the time, the Red Sox didn’t and they’ve been a lot better now.”
For Rice, 27, wearing pinstripes is a dream realized. He showed up to picture day in first grade in Yankees gear and had a poster of Derek Jeter in his bedroom. He remembers attending Red Sox-Yankees games and hearing the boos for Jeter and Alex Rodríguez. One time, while on a tour of Fenway Park as a child, he wrote “Yankees Rule” on the Pesky Pole down the right-field line. Another time, his family had tickets to a game near the visitors’ on-deck circle.
“I remember seeing [Robinson] Cano in the on-deck circle, and my dad and I were just looking at his huge forearms,” Rice said. “And we were just like, ‘This guy is jacked.'”
Rice and Schlittler, two years apart, share similar trajectories beyond their differing childhood fandoms. Both attended New England colleges not recognized for their baseball programs — Rice went to Dartmouth, Schlittler to Northeastern. Neither was a high draft pick — Rice was selected in the 12th round in 2021, Schlittler in the seventh round in 2022 — but Yankees area scout Matt Hyde identified their potential and advocated for them.
Rice said the Red Sox were the organization that scouted him the most after the Yankees. He assumes Boston would have drafted him if not for New York. But Schlittler recalled getting minimal interest from the Red Sox.
“I had a really good connection with the Yankees in college,” Schlittler said. “I didn’t really talk to the Red Sox. Like I’ve said before, they don’t really draft out of New England. It’s not something they like to do. And the Yankees are definitely all over that.”
Neither was considered a top prospect when they made their MLB debuts — Rice in 2024, Schlittler in 2025. But both, barring injury or disastrous performance in the coming weeks, will be on the AL All-Star team in Philadelphia next month after rapid ascensions. There’s a strong chance both will start the game — with a potential side quest for Rice the night before.
“I know he said he wants to do the [Home Run] Derby,” Schlittler said. “I told him I’d hold his Gatorade for him if we get that far. It’d be really cool to see him in that. But we still got a long way until those decisions are made.”
Rice, who confirmed his interest in the Derby, should receive an invitation for the event. After belting 26 home runs with an .836 OPS in a breakout 2025 campaign, the left-handed hitter, drafted and developed as a catcher, has become an MVP-caliber contributor splitting time between first base and designated hitter this season. His 22 home runs are fourth in the majors. His .956 OPS ranks sixth. Rice has effectively replaced Juan Soto‘s production — a year after Soto departed for Queens with the largest contract in MLB history — at roughly 1/60th Soto’s salary this season.
“I just think his experience now is really starting to pay off for him,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He’s a smart guy, knows how to prepare and what to look for and how he wants to game plan. So it’s that controlling the strike zone with the ability to really impact the baseball and now I think his experience too is serving him well to allow him to continue to ascend as an offensive player.”
Rice made a loud entrance into the rivalry during his rookie season in 2024, becoming the first Yankees rookie to hit three home runs in a game, in a 14-4 July win. A year later, Schlittler burst onto the scene, ascending from mostly unheralded prospect to a hard-throwing menace by the time he reached the majors in July.
Wielding a 100 mph fastball — he touched triple digits for the first time in his major league debut — the right-hander posted a 2.96 ERA in 14 starts before encountering the Red Sox — and their intense fanbase — from the other side for the first time in a win-or-go-home Game 3 of the wild-card series.
That night, Schlittler recorded one of the greatest postseason pitching performances in Yankees history, holding the Red Sox scoreless over eight innings with 12 strikeouts and no walks. He later revealed that Boston fans had harassed him and his family online heading into the start.
Schlittler has taken the next step this season, dicing through lineups with three fastballs — a four-seamer, a sinker and a difference-making cutter. He made a sterling Fenway debut in April — he allowed two runs, one earned, on four hits over eight innings. Schlittler was not as sharp at Fenway in a 6-3 loss Thursday, while his defense didn’t help. Yet he still lowered his ERA to an AL-best 1.62, since the four runs he allowed over five innings were unearned. He finished with nine strikeouts and two walks, giving up a two-run home run to former Yankees prospect Caleb Durbin in the fifth inning.
“For me it was just easy to flip the switch,” Schlittler said, “and not really care too much about that Red Sox legacy anymore.”
The duo continued its breakout last Friday in the Yankees’ 5-0 win over the Cincinnati Reds, when Schlittler delivered six scoreless innings with 13 strikeouts and no walks, and Rice cracked a three-run home run.
“They come out of a hotbed of big league talent,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone joked after the game. “It’s remarkable. Really, when you think about it, two Massachusetts kids. We said that in the belt ceremony, ‘What Massachusetts guy is going to get it tonight?’
“So obviously a great job by Matty Hyde, and then all the people involved in helping them get here. But they are obviously turning into two cornerstone pieces for us and, in their own way, dominating the league.”
The unanticipated leaps come while the floundering Red Sox wait for their hyped young core to fulfill expectations. In contrast to Rice and Schlittler, Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer and Kristian Campbell were widely regarded as top-25 prospects entering last season. The trio, to varying degrees and for different reasons, has encountered turbulence.
Anthony debuted as the consensus top-ranked prospect in baseball last season and lived up to the hype. He posted a .292/.396/.463 slash line and 3.3 bWAR in 71 games as a 21-year-old rookie before going on the injured list with a strained oblique in early September and not returning. This season, the outfielder has been limited to 30 games because of a partially torn tendon in his right ring finger he suffered in early May.
Mayer has battled his own injuries and has a .625 OPS in 114 career games. Campbell, meanwhile, was named Boston’s Opening Day second baseman last season but struggled so badly he was optioned to Triple-A Worcester in June and still hasn’t returned to the majors. This year, he’s batting .209 with two home runs and a .621 OPS in 61 Triple-A games.
The Red Sox, keeping with a recent leaguewide trend, gave Campbell an eight-year, $60 million contract extension a week into his major league career last April. Four months later, Boston and Anthony agreed to an eight-year, $130 million extension that can max out at $230 million. The two players joined right-hander Brayan Bello as young contributors signed to contract extensions early in their careers; Bello agreed to a six-year, $55 million deal in March 2024 after his first full big league season but was recently optioned to Triple A.
The Yankees, meanwhile, are the only MLB club that has not given a player a contract extension since the end of the 2020 season, according to ESPN Insights. In all, 176 contract extensions have been signed during that period. Six teams — the Red Sox, Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, Tampa Bay Rays. Kansas City Royals and Colorado Rockies — have given out at least 10.
For now, Rice and Schlittler give the Yankees two pillars for the foreseeable future. They complement the team’s veteran stars — led by 34-year-old Aaron Judge and 35-year-old Gerrit Cole — and are significant reasons the Yankees are favorites to win the pennant. And they add juice to a rivalry that could use some.
