Cam Schlittler is built for surprisingly hostile environment Yankees face in Game 2

ST.PETERSBURG, Fla.

— Down 1-0 in a best-of-five AL Division Series, the Yankees could not ask for a better potential savior than Cam Schlittler in Game 2. Surprised by a sold-out, Rays-heavy crowd at Tropicana Field in Game 1, at a location that Schlittler himself said before the game usually is akin to “playing at home,” the Yankees could not ask for a pitcher better equipped to channel that energy and those jeers into brilliance. “I prefer to be booed,” Schlittler said earlier this season.“It’s fun.

It gets more intense.… I feed off of that.” His numbers support his preference.

In the history of baseball — at least since 1913 — there has not been a pitcher who opened his career with superior numbers while pitching in enemy territory. Yes, the front-runner for the American League Cy Young Award has pitched well everywhere, but his 1.52 ERA in his first 23 career starts on the road is the lowest by any major league pitcher in the past 113 years. And this season, Road Schlittler was even better, going 8-2 in 17 starts with a 1.16 ERA that marked the fifth-lowest road mark in one campaign since 1913.His company: Bob Gibson’s 0.81 ERA in 1968, Walter Johnson’s 1.06 ERA in 1913 and 1.13 ERA in 1918, and Greg Maddux’s 1.12 ERA in 1995. “I don’t know why the splits are the way they were,” Schlittler said Saturday, before the Yankees dropped Game 1, 1-0, at a ballpark that turned into an advantage for the home team.

“But at the same time, I feel like I pitched really good at home in the back end.On the road, I feel like, again, going into an away crowd and silencing that is a great feeling.”  Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Greg Joyce about the inside buzz on the Yankees.

Boston fans can attest that even the most hostile atmospheres cannot shake and might even inspire Schlittler. Which means Monday, when the Yankees give the ball to their ace of aces in a game o...