From Matthew Ritchie:
Max Fried was among the last people to find out that he’d be starting Game 2 of the Yankees’ doubleheader on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium. Manager Aaron Boone said the deliberations on the club’s pitching plan started on Tuesday when that evening’s game was rained out, with an interesting rotation crunch lying ahead for the weekend set in Philadelphia.
Boone, bench coach Brad Ausmus and the pitching-coach triumvirate led by Matt Blake first met, then came the talk with the trainers to get their opinion on Fried’s readiness to return fully (as he was also slated to throw on Wednesday, regardless). With the trainers’ go-ahead, Boone and the rest of the coaching staff brought Fried in when the lefty arrived at the ballpark to present their plan to him.
And according to Boone, Fried needed little convincing to be on board.
“Max walked in and was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it,’” Boone said.
It’s no wonder why Fried was raring to get back onto a Major League mound. In his return against the Pirates, he was stellar, despite being on a pitch count due to still building back up from his left elbow bone bruise. He tossed five scoreless innings and struck out seven batters, allowing just one hit and one walk — creating a runway for the Yankees’ 2-0 win in the finale. He threw 57 pitches, with 37 of them going for strikes, and produced 10 swings and misses.
57 pitches is, like, two innings for the other Yankees starters, so this really was a remarkable achievement by Fried!
Anyhow, this has been a nice stretch of pitching by the Yankee pitching staff against a few VERY good offenses. They’ve taken on literally the three best offenses in baseball in the last nine games and got their asses kicked once, and that one ass-kicking was due to two relievers that I don’t think will throw a single pitch in a theoretical playoff game for this team.
Annoyingly, they are going to head to Chicago next eek to take on the FOURTH best offense next week AND the EIGHTH best offense. So their pitchers will continue to be tested. It’s notable that the Yankees offense has fallen all the way to tenth in the Majors due to their horrendous slump following Aaron Judge’s injury.
Thank goodness for the pitching! The bullpen has a 2.72 ERA in the last 42 games, and that’s WITH Jake Bird and Camilo Doval shitting up the joint whenever they pitch!
I still can’t quite figure out what the deal is with Fernando Cruz and extra innings. He just completely loses it whenever he is asked to pitch in extras. Boone should probably, well, you know, stop using him in those scenarios. I get that you want Headrick in regulation time, so use Blackburn next time, Boone! Blackburn has looked outstanding. He was huge in this one, pitching around some terrible defense behind him. Volpe got a big hit in this one, but he also played some truly awful defense, and Jazz made a horrendous play to end the game that shouldn’t have ended the game (I have no idea how replay didn’t overturn the call).
But hey, they won the series, so this was ultimately a good result for the Yankees. Too bad Tampa Bay swept the Blue Jays. Fucking Blue Jays.
About the Author
I’ve said it before. If Billy Martin was managing this team, we’d be reading Jazz’ obituary today.
Fried was terrific. Hopefully, he will stay healthy now.