From Bryan Hoch:
Max Fried has been battle-tested on the biggest stage this sport has to offer, and as the veteran left-hander puts the finishing touches on his first regular season with the Yankees, his continued success provides one striking reason to believe in the potential of a deep October run.
Fried had all of his pitches working as he fired seven scoreless innings and matched his career high with 13 strikeouts in a 7-0 victory over the Orioles on Thursday evening at Camden Yards. He has now set career highs in wins (18), innings (188 1/3) and strikeouts (182) this season.
“I’m feeling really good physically,” Fried said. “I feel like I did toward the beginning of the year; just changing speeds, trying to get deep into games and trying to win games. It was really big from the offense, coming out early and scoring some runs.”
The stellar three-hit outing, coming in Fried’s 31st start (also a career high), helped the Yankees (86-67) take advantage of an opportunity to gain ground in the American League East race. Shrugging off travel fatigue following an early morning arrival from Minneapolis, the Yanks closed within three games of the Blue Jays (89-64), who lost earlier in the day to the Rays. New York’s edge over Houston (84-69) and Seattle (84-69) remained at two games for the top AL Wild Card spot.
It was so unusual to just see a dominant pitching performance from a Yankee starter. Why didn’t Fried collapse in the fifth?!
Anyhow, great win, especially as tonight’s a guaranteed loss with Warren vs. Trevor Rogers, who might be the best pitcher in baseball since his return from the IL.
Featured image is Fried’s THIRTEENTH strikeout, still fooling dudes BADLY late in the game.
Fried was masterful. He watched two shaky guys with nice leads the two previous nights fail to get out of the fifth inning. He showed them how to do it. Maybe one of those two took note.
You think so? To my own chagrin, I’m willing to take that bet.
I did say ‘maybe’. 😎
I know.