TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Young New York Yankees pitcher Cam Schlittler is dealing with back inflammation and a lat issue, causing him to skip some bullpen sessions.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone revealed the injury Thursday and made it seem minor, as did the right-hander, who turned 25 last week. Schlittler said his concern was “zero.”
“I’ve been dealing with it for a little bit so I just want to make sure I’m on top of it and get ready for opening day,” Schlittler said.
He made his major league debut on July 9 and went 4-3 with a 2.96 ERA in 14 starts. With a fastball that averaged 98 mph, Schlittler struck out 84 and walked 31 in 73 innings. He pitched eight shutout innings against Boston in the Wild Card Series, then allowed four runs — two earned — over 6 1/3 innings in the Division Series vs. Toronto.
“Obviously we’re very excited about him and expect him to be a key part of our rotation and still expect,” Boone said.
Schlittler underwent a test that Boone said “kind of came back good news.”
“Probably keep him off the mound for the next few days at least,” Boone said. “He’s continuing with his throwing program.”
New York already projects to start the season on March 25 without ace Gerrit Cole, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery last March 11, and Carlos Rodón, regaining arm strength following an operation on Oct. 15 to remove loose bodies in his left elbow and shave a bone spur.
Rodón is not likely to return to the Yankees before May and Cole is expected back sometime during the first half of the season. In addition, Clarke Schmidt will miss much of the season following UCL repair surgery on July 11.
Schlittler said he first felt the issue a few weeks ago and described it as minor inflammation and “maybe more lat, as well.” He hopes to pitch off a mound next week.
Asked whether he had dealt with the issue in the past, Schlittler said “last year, some on-and-off stuff.”
“For now, it’s just good to take care of it and make sure it doesn’t really turn into something that you start to worry about,” he said.
New York's projected rotation for the season's start includes Max Fried, Schlittler, Luis Gil, Will Warren, and Ryan Weathers. Gil, the 2024 AL Rookie of the Year, injured a lat during spring training last year and didn't make his season debut until Aug. 3.
Schlittler pitched 164 innings last year, including the postseason, well above his previous professional high of 120 2/3 in 2024. He took four weeks off after the playoffs, then started his offseason throwing program.
“There’s no really off time,” he said. "When it comes to baseball, you’re always working on all that."
Schlittler attended big league spring training last year, started the season at Double-A Somerset, then was promoted to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on June 3. He was called up after just five starts with the RailRiders.
“I came in here last spring training kind of as a no one, a prospect, whatever it was, but I was really trying to learn things, coming here and get my work in. It was more an experience last year,” he said. “I feel like being over here now it’s like, 'Hey, I've earned that role. I'm going to go out there. I know exactly what I need to do.'”
Paul Goldschmidt's $4 million, one-year contract was finalized.
He can earn $2 million in performance bonuses for plate appearances: $500,000 each for 400, 450, 500 and 550.
A seven-time All-Star and the 2022 NL MVP, the 38-year-old hit .274 with 10 homers, 45 RBIs and a .731 OPS with the Yankees last year after signing a $12.5 million, one-year contract as a free agent. He had 534 plate appearances but just 155 after the All-Star break as he slumped and lost playing time to Ben Rice.
With his return, the Yankees have brought back 24 of the 26 players on their Division Series roster last October. Only relievers Devin Williams and Luke Weaver departed.
Schmidt was placed on the 60-day injured list to open a roster spot.
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New York Yankees first baseman Paul Goldschmidt tips his cap during a spring training baseball workout on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
FILE - New York Yankees pitcher Cam Schlittler delivers against the Toronto Blue Jays during the first inning of Game 4 of baseball's American League Division Series, Oct. 8, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — The families of victims of a shooting in a remote Canadian Rockies town grappled with unrelenting grief Thursday as details emerged about those killed in the country's deadliest mass shooting in years.
Authorities said the 18-year-old alleged shooter, identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar, killed her 39-year-old mother, Jennifer Jacobs, and 11-year-old stepbrother, Emmett Jacobs, in their northern British Columbia home on Tuesday before heading to the nearby Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and opening fire, killing five children and an educator before killing herself.
Twenty-five people were also injured in the attack. The motive remains unclear.
Among the dead was 12-year-old Kylie Smith, whose family remembered her as "the light in our family.”
“She loved her family, friends, and going to school," Kylie's family said in a statement. “She was a talented artist and had dreams of going to art school in the big city of Toronto. Rest in paradise, sweet girl, our family will never be the same without you.”
Kylie's father tearfully recounted the desperate hours spent trying to learn what happened to his daughter, only to find out from an older girl, not the authorities.
Lance Younge told CTV News that his son, Ethan, texted “I love you” shortly after 3 p.m. Tuesday and then called a short time later to say he was hiding in a utility room at his school in the small mountain community of Tumbler Ridge, but that he didn't know where his sister Kylie was.
The family would find out hours later that Kylie was among the dead.
While looking for Kylie, Younge said he walked around the local recreation center where students were reuniting with their families for about six hours, but that police wouldn't tell him anything.
“I went home not knowing where my daughter was until a high school kid ... came here and told us her story about trying to save my daughter’s life," he said. "The police didn’t tell us anything. We had to find out through the community and through kids and rumors.”
Authorities on Thursday identified the other victims as Abel Mwansa, Zoey Benoit and Ticaria Lampert, all age 12, as well as 13-year-old Ezekiel Schofield and assistant teacher Shannda Aviugana-Durand, 39.
In a statement, Zoey's family described her as “resilient, vibrant, smart, caring and the strongest little girl you could meet."
Peter Schofield, whose grandson, Ezekiel, was killed, shared his grief in a Facebook post, saying: “Everything feels so surreal. The tears just keep flowing.”
Trent Ernst, publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines, the town's biweekly newspaper, said he has been “randomly breaking down and weeping at inopportune times, usually when talking to people about what is happening.”
He said he knows Maya Gebala, 12, who was wounded in the head and neck, and Paige Hoekstra, 19, who also suffered bullet wounds. Both were hospitalized in Vancouver.
He said he spoke with Maya at a recent town winter carnival, describing her as “funky and vivacious” and “full of life.”
Ernst said one of the biggest frustrations in the community is the lack of medical support and in particular mental health services. Rootselaar had a history of police visits to her home to check on her mental health, authorities said.
“The majority of people that I’ve talked to are sad more at the fact that Tumbler Ridge doesn’t have the level of support for mental health and health services in general," he said.
“If this had happened three hours later, our clinic would have been closed and there would be no emergency room there," he said, adding that it would likely have reopened under such exceptional circumstances.
In particular, Ernst said there's a severe lack of mental health services in the Canadian Rockies town, which has roughly 2,700 residents and is more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Vancouver, near the provincial border with Alberta.
“Right now, there are five mental health nurses in town. But this is the exception, and it’s an exceptional situation. There are times where we’ll go months, if not years, without having anybody in mental health services in town,” he said.
Rootselaar and her family led a “nomadic lifestyle” marked by multiple moves between at least three Canadian provinces, according to a 2015 British Columbia court ruling.
The court's decision in a dispute between the alleged shooter’s parents described her mother, Jennifer Jacobs, moving with her children between Newfoundland, Grand Cache in Alberta and Powell River, British Columbia, in the previous five years.
Her mother, also known as Jennifer Strang, was found to have engaged in “reprehensible conduct” by failing to give her children’s father enough notice that she was moving back to Newfoundland in August 2015.
Jacobs was ordered in the court ruling to return their children to British Columbia.
Mourners braved frigid cold Wednesday night to honor the victims, with Mayor Darryl Krakowka telling them, “It’s OK to cry.”
Krakowka described the town as “one big family,” and encouraged people to reach out and support each other, especially the families of those who died in the attack. The community must support victims’ families “forever,” not only in the days and weeks to come, he said.
Police recovered a long gun and a modified handgun at the school that they said Rootselaar used in the attack.
Dwayne McDonald, deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia, said Wednesday there was no information that anyone at the school was targeted. He said officers arrived at the school two minutes after the initial call and that shots were fired in their direction when they showed up.
“Parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers in Tumbler Ridge will wake up without someone they love. The nation mourns with you, and Canada stands by you,” an emotional Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday as he arrived in Parliament.
Carney, who said flags at government buildings will be flown at half-staff for seven days, planned to visit Tumbler Ridge on Friday.
The attack was Canada’s deadliest since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 13 people and set fires that left another nine dead.
School shootings are rare in Canada, which has strict gun-control laws. The government has responded to previous mass shootings with gun-control measures, including a recently broadened ban on all guns it considers assault weapons.
Gillies reported from Toronto. Associated Press reporter R.J. Rico in Atlanta contributed.
Speaker of the B.C. Legislative Assembly Raj Chouhan speaks at a candle light vigil at the front steps of the legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026 in honour of the victims of the school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. (Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press via AP)
People console one another during a candle light vigil at the front steps of the legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026 in honor of the victims of the school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. (Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press via AP)
A welcome sign is seen entering the town of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)
Police tape surrounds a school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, after Tuesday's mass shooting. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)
Residents hug as they place flowers at a memorial for the victims of Tuesday's mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)
