Max Fried (#54, 31, LHP, 12-5, 2.94) vs. Sonny Gray (#54, 35, RHP, 11-5, 4.06)
YANKEES
CF T. Grisham L
1B Ben Rice L
DH Aaron Judge R
2B J. Chisholm L
LF J. Dominguez S
SS A. Volpe R
3B Ryan McMahon L
C Austin Wells L
RF J. Caballero R
CARDINALS
SS Masyn Winn R
1B A. Burleson L
DH Ivan Herrera R
LF L. Nootbaar L
RF J. Walker R
3B Nolan Gorman L
2B T. Saggese R
C Pedro Pages R
CF Victor Scott L
Sonny Gay is going to dominate this shitty lineup.
Motherfucker, Stanton IS hurt. Too, too funny.
Boone says Stanton is having trouble “bouncing back” after playing the outfield three nights in a row (two games starting in the outfield), so they’re being cautious and letting him rest. Totally the right decision, of course, but holy shit, dude!
https://nypost.com/2025/08/16/sports/giancarlo-stanton-out-of-lineup-again-in-yankees-worry/
That makes me feel better about it, honestly. The guy just can’t run too much, which is fair enough, honestly. He hadn’t played three straight games in the outfield in THREE YEARS! So yeah, let him rest.
Stanton hits HRs like a 28-year-old, the rest of his body is like a 65-year-old.
Okay, Judgey, how will you fuck THIS up?
Damn, he hit that shit SO FUCKING HARD.
Okay, so how will Jazz fuck this up?
Em-fucking-barrassing, Jazz. But you hit a home run yesterday, so I’ll give you a mulligan.
Let this be the beginning of a Judge hot streak.
Attaboy, Dominguez! Okay, how is Volpe going to fuck this up?
Volpe and Jazz embarrassing themselves. Come on, McMahon!
That’s our Volpe, HR or nothing.
I’d walk McMahon to face Wells, too.
HE WAS TRYING TO WALK YOU, MCMAHON! DAMN, DUDE!
McMahon fitting right in.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, McMahon striking out wouldn’t be any different than McMahon walking with Wells on deck, but it wouldn’t clear Wells’ spot in the lineup, so bad job, McMahon! HE WAS TRYING TO WALK YOU!
They needed to score four runs with Max “Automatically four runs scored” Fried pitching!
Ringo Fried.
And so it begins.
Actually, at some point he’s going to have to give up 5 runs to compensate for that one 3-run game.
This fucking loser can’t put anyone away anymore.
Instead, he just throws more and more pitches until he walks the dude or grooves one.
Walker is a perfect test. He’s a very jumpy hitter. Fried SHOULD be able to take advantage of that jumpiness. WILL he?
Well, an out’s an out, but that was an awful out.
Man, Fried is just pitching like a total piece of shit lately.
Could Fried bat and use the DH for Wells?
The outfield defense in this series so far has been crazy good.
The difference in quality between the top and bottom of this lineup is STRIKING.
Gray just threw his two best pitches of the night so far to Rice in this at-bat.
Where’s the box on that pitch? Looked high.
The more I think of it, the more I think it’s an insult to Caballero to bat him after Wells.
Escarra can’t possibly be as bad as Wells
Good call. Why NOT give Escarra a start?
How is he so fucking bad out of nowhere? Is Yarbrough ready yet? Can they put Fried on the IL and just try to figure his shit out?
Ringo didn’t look like a master of control vs. Gorman.
His outs are still being ROCKED.
Fried seems determined to make Yankees fans dislike him.
In all seriousness, I’d just pull him now. Headrick couldn’t be worse than this.
Second inning and he’s half-way to his quota. Efficient!
He was UNTOUCHABLE for 1/3+ of the season. How can almost the entire team do the exact same crazy turnabout?
The same sabotage in the water that hit Judge? 😎
Thank god they didn’t just pull him as soon as he showed he had absolutely NOTHING tonight.
I’m sorry, I said 5 runs. My bad. Mea culpa. Goddamn reverse reverse jinx.
Well, you can put this one in the loss column.
Ringo Fried is unbearable.
First batter hits a weak groundball
Second batter hits a scorcher
Third batter hits a scorcher
Fourth batter strikes out on a called strike
Fifth batter hits a scorcher (out)
Sixth batter walks
Seventh batter hits a scorcher (out)
Eighth batter hits a scorcher
Ninth batter hits a scorcher
What could EVER happen with the tenth batter?!
The challenge: Fried v. this Yankees lineup. Who wins?
As dogshit as Fried has been, at the end of the day, sometimes pitchers just don’t have it. So you fucking PULL THEM.
Boone will learn …
That said, obviously at this point, you just let him soak up innings.
If they had an offense, and three runs down with seven to go, you’d pull him.
With the home run, I guess you go batter-to-batter in the third.
I didn’t know all this about him changing his grip. But why would someone with a career 140 era+ changes what he was doing?
I think it comes down to the blisters. He had to change his grip because of the blisters. That’s why he should have just gone on the IL and worked on the blisters. Trust me, guys, we’re okay without him pitching hurt!
Magic pitching coach advice? Blister problems? 🤷🏻♂️
Fried has been dealing with blisters for years now. In the past, he’d go on the IL. This time, he didn’t, and maybe he SHOULD have.
Maybe?
Ringo can’t pitch.
Struck out the last guy, but 2 in a row follow 0-2 with three completely uncompetitive balls.
If only Fried wasn’t such a piece of shit, they might have actually won this game.
Freakier Friday is back in the theaters. So what if 2017 Sonny Gray took over Max Fried’s body?
Judge actually hitting again would not be entirely unwelcome, if (by this point) unexpected.
What was the injury delay?
The Cardinals CF’er banged himself up attempting to catch the Judge HR.
Outfielder crashed into the wall, twisted his foot trying to catch Judge’s home run.
Thanks, got it!
Where the strike box? That looked outside. Fox can’t afford 2025 graphics?
Fried is hiding an injury, right? I predict they shut him down and we don’t see him again after this month
As they’ve been saying on the broadcast, he appears to have changed his grip to help avoid blisters, and, well, it certainly appears to be having a negative impact on his pitching, as he has flat out SUCKED from the moment he had the blisters on his hand right before the All-Star break.
At the very least, they should be able to face the St. Louis bullpen sooner than later with all of the pitches Gray has been throwing.
It’s a MAJOR problem if I’m now assuming that they’re going to lose any game Max Fried starts.
At least take some fucking pitches, Wells, you loser.
Nope, second pitch groundout, because he hates me.
Grisham should have allowed Caballero to steal second first, right?
Pull him! Pull him!
Anything but a GIDP, Rice.
When a pitcher has been struggling, and you give him that call. That’s just some horseshit.
The first two pitches, as per GD, were perfect pitches. Strikes, although just barely.
They should have pulled him.
Now THAT’s what I’m talking about!
At least one young player doesn’t suck.
Why are they leaving him in?
Their bullpen is so bad that Gray is probably still their best bet, so I really WAS hoping they’d pull him (I mean, I think MOST teams would think that would be the time to pull him, but I get that the bullpen issue is a real issue).
Whoa!
Odds of a leadoff walk here are about 1 to 1000.
That was a pretty bad AB by Judge.
It was a REALLY bad at-bat, especially considering he had previously doubled and homered off the guy.
A quarter of the way.
To what?
It’s funny, I should have said it then, but once he allowed the 5 runs (to compensate for that one outlier 3-run game), I was sure that was all he’d allow.
Why is he facing this guy?!
I don’t care that he K’ed him, it was silly to keep him in there against the guy who homered off of him earlier.
I mean, I CARE, of course. 😉
Both starters at 76 pitches through four.
Volpe OPS back under .700
McMahon has been quietly mediocre.
Quietly mediocre is a huge step up from what they had.
I see why they felt they needed to stick with Gray, as the reliever gave up a hit to WELLS!
Man, Scott has a fucking GUN out there.
Okay, how are they going to fuck THIS up?
How will they blow this?
Rice having himself a game!
A bases clearing double by Rice. Wow.
You walk Judge and bring in a lefty for Jazz and Dominguez, right?
Huh, maybe they don’t HAVE a lefty?
Not a great night for Jazz.
Good for this Munoz guy.
Pull him already. Is Boone surprised?
I mean, we know Boone is dumb, but there’s dumb, there’s dumb, and then there’s leaving him in the game in the sixth inning after giving up a double dumb.
Mind-numbingly so.
he got through 5 somehow; bang the gong and his agent will send flowers!
With a four-run lead, I get trying to save the bullpen, but you go batter-to-batter. Once he gave up a loud double, you fucking PULL HIM.
Devin Williams’ inability to put people away after spending his whole career as a dude who constantly puts people away is really baffling.
Okay, can’t complain about that too much.
So now, what, Hill for the 7th (with Yerry backing him up if he gets into trouble) and then Weaver for teh 8th and Bednar for the 9th?
Just logged on. Wow Boone is an idiot. 5 runs in 5 and brings him out for the 6th? Just wow.
Up four runs, I can even defend it, but I can’t remotely defend letting him remain in after the leadoff double.
I swear I was about to say that now would be a good time for his first Yankee homer.
McMahon gets one back.
Rice, with RBI 7 on the night, gets the other run back.
Sure would be nice if Judge could make it so they could close this game out with Terry, Hill, and Headrick.
They gave Judge nothing to hit, yet he swung at two borderline pitches before walking.
Yeah, he fucking LOVES to expand the zone, huh?
He was so disciplined the first few months too.
It’s BAFFLING that he stopped chasing, and then hit fucking .400, then just…stopped doing that, and got much worse.
That’s the thing about these guys, though, if the greatest hitter in the game can’t just keep doing what he knows would work best, how do you get Luis fucking Gil to follow a gameplan, ya know?
Did I miss anything?
You go to Yerry for the 8th, too, right? Heck, maybe even the 9th if he can get through the 8th well.
Nice play Volpe. Weird camera work.
If they give Yerry one more inning, then he can get a save in a very odd game.
Nice going, Leiter.
The idea that Bednar is pitching in this game is INSANE.
Just a bad job by Leiter.
But hey, they won!
Boone on Fried “obviously some things to still work on there, stuffs there, feel like he’s close, gotta get better presence on both sides of the plate.”
You must be joking.
I can’t blame leiter for a grounder and a squib.
So fried starts the game gives up 5 in 2 innings then 3 scoreless…is it possible he realized his new grip isn’t working and went back to what worked? (Blisters be damned) Then with a big lead started playing around again? The need to IL him if they want a chance in the playoffs. Playoffs? Playoffs?
It seems like Fried changed his grip to start 2025 not after the blister.
Lance Brozdowski 4/25
Yankees Max Fried has overhauled his righty approach. I mentioned the sinker tweak when he made his Yankees debut, but there was more under the hood. He’s throwing a true four-seam fastball with arm-side movement alongside the primary fastball he threw last year, which is a cutter shape tagged as a four-seamer (confusing, I know). In every one of his starts, he has a noticeable cluster of fastballs that move arm-side with separation from his normal fastball (see picture below). The shape with arm-side has been located more up in the zone than the regular cutter shape, further confirming it’s a different pitch. 🗽
The Yankees also appear to have taken away the 2 slider shapes he was throwing last season to righties (~10% usage combined in the previous year). Instead, he’s throwing his sweeper more, which is odd given the taboo nature of sweepers to opposite-handed hitters. He’s tracking for the highest strikeout rate of his career at ~27%. His changes feel impactful and sustainable. His mid-3s ERA projection feels light at the moment.
G Ryan Yarbrough and Fernando Cruz are both on rehab assignments with Triple-A Scranton, and Jonathan Loáisiga has started a throwing program. The first two are both likely to be ready before rosters expand on September 1st, and Loáisiga might be ready by then as well, meaning the Yankees would need to find three spots with only two relievers capable of being optioned to the minors: Brent Headrick and Yerry De Los Santos.
T Grisham (L) CF
B Rice (L) C
A Judge (R) DH
C Bellinger (L) RF
J Chisholm Jr. (L) 2B
P Goldschmidt (R) 1B
J Domínguez (S) LF
R McMahon (L) 3B
J Caballero (R) SS
Wow. Volpe not playing.
Greg Joyce Giancarlo Stanton declined to say if it is a specific body part bothering him or just general soreness.
“I’m available to pinch-hit,” he said.
Neither he nor Aaron Boone would say if he will play RF in Tampa.
But Boone said he doesn’t see this turning into an IL situation.