​NEW YORK – Aaron Judge was nowhere to be found on the field at Yankee Stadium. Yet “M-V-P!” chants still resonated through the raucous ballpark.Judge did not join his teammates on the baseline for pregame introductions. But a total team effort pulled the Yankees through in a virtual must-win game.There’s still no certainty if or when Judge will take the field this postseason. But for one night, perhaps the most important night of the playoffs – Game 1 of the best-of-three American League wild card series – the Yankees proved they could survive without their three-time Most Valuable Player.Perhaps that’s because Cam Schlittler has become their most important player.Schlittler tormented the Boston Red Sox for the second consecutive year in the wild card round, this time getting a massive assist from fellow New England product Ben Rice, the Walpole ace and the Cohasset crusher laying waste to the team they couldn’t avoid growing up.This time, Schlittler took a two-hit shutout into the seventh inning and Rice drove in six runs as the Yankees moved a massive step toward advancing to the AL Division Series with a 9-0 trouncing of the Red Sox on Tuesday, Sept. 29.Game 2 is Wednesday night, Boston’s Sonny Gray pitching to save the Red Sox’s season against Yankees lefty Max Fried. Tuesday’s final score might have you believe Game 1 was a laugher.It was anything but, Schlitter nursing a 1-0 lead into the fifth and a 2-0 lead into the seventh, with Rice quietly laying waste to the Red Sox bullpen until his final, big blast.That came in the bottom of the eighth inning, a garbage time grand slam off Brayan Bello to make it 9-0 and bring winter nearer New England.It was Rice’s fourth hit and he tied a Yankees franchise record with his six RBIs, the fifth to do it and the first since Robinson Cano in 2011. Rice, the Dartmouth grad and erudite soul of the Yankee clubhouse, does not necessarily fit the mold of past Yankee greats.In another fashion, he and Schlittler are both fitting right in.“If you want to be a legend,” Schlittler said Tuesday, “you’ve got to do it in the postseason.”Doesn’t he know it. Schlittler’s die was cast in the decisive Game 3 of the 2025 wild-card round, when he struck out 12 Red Sox over eight innings and talked mad smack after, chiding Red Sox fans for goading him on social media.A year later, Schlittler’s tone mellowed only a bit, noting his good friends from up north came down for the game and while they are Red Sox fans, knew not to poke the bear.His pitching dominance was nearly identical, though.Cam Schlittler stats are unrealMixing in a diving curveball that got five swings and misses his first time through the order, Schlittler retired 13 in a row, seven by strikeout, after Adley Rutschman’s 10-pitch at-bat ended in a first-inning single.The streak ended with a seven-pitch walk to Jarren Duran in the fifth. But manager Aaron Boone let Schlittler go, all the way to 117 pitches until ther