From Bill Ladson:
Yankees left-hander Max Fried left Saturday’s 5-2 loss against the Cubs after three innings because of a blister on his left index finger.
It was a grind for Fried on this day. He allowed four runs (three earned) and threw 73 pitches during those frames. Fried realized something was wrong with the finger on the second-to-last pitch that he threw to Jon Berti in the third inning. It was then he realized a blister was developing.
“I threw the fastball. I kind of felt it go. I threw the changeup with the next pitch and was able to get out of the inning,” Fried said.
Blisters have placed Fried on the injured list multiple times during his career, but he is not sure how serious the current injury is. He has the All-Star break on his side, and the Yankees do not start the second half of the season until Friday when they open a three-game series against the Braves.
“It’s too early to tell. The good thing is, we have the break and [can] try to do as much as we can,” Fried said. “As far as timelines, I don’t know exactly how this one is going to shake out. A lot of the time, you have to see how it shakes out during the next couple of days.”
Well, now we have to worry about whether this will send him to the IL or not. They reeeeeeeeeeally can’t afford to suddenly have a rotation where Marcus Stroman is the #3 starter.
Rodon
Warren
Stroman
Schlittler
Winans
is an awful, awful rotation. They really need Fried to be healthy.
Anyhow, beyond that, the Yankees were once again dominated by an All-Star starter. I don’t think that’s really that big of a deal. Great pitchers sometimes pitch great. Carlos Rodon is also an All-Star, and he dominated the Cubs. Had Fried not been pitching hurt all day (and even though the blister technically only showed up at the end of the outing, come on, I think we all get he was having trouble gripping the ball all day, and that was almost assuredly because of the blister forming), he probably would have done well, too.
So while it certainly sucked (and it sucked worse with the Red Sox winning their NINTH in a row), it wasn’t THAT big of a deal. Toronto losing was nice.
So now the worst case scenario for the Yankees is that they’re one game up on top Wild Card spot, and three games behind Toronto heading into the All-Star break. That’s really not that bad.
Featured image is Fried freaking out about his blister.
Three behind Jays and two up on Boston really is that bad considering where they were like 6 weeks ago. And now Schmidt and Cruz are gone. Today they face another tough lefty. Will he totally dominate them? My position is even against a good pitcher on his game, good teams can usually scratch out 2 or 3. Since 2017 the Yankees have mostly failed that test.
Kirschner Luis Gil will throw 50 pitches today in Somerset.
He’ll have a conservative build up from today before he’s back in the majors. They’ll decide if he can come back once he reaches 75 pitches or if they want him to get to 90 pitches.