From Bryan Hoch:
Max Fried had plenty to block out before his Opening Night start, a made-for-streaming production with yellow cabs and San Francisco cable cars parked beyond the dugouts, plus fireworks that left a haze over the ballpark.
This time, there were no distractions — just pitching. And that suited him fine.
Fried extended his scoreless innings streak to 13 1/3 with seven sterling frames, striking out six while allowing three hits and a walk, earning his second win in a 5-0 victory over the Mariners on Tuesday evening at T-Mobile Park.
“There weren’t times where I was just fighting to throw strikes; I felt like I was actually able to locate today, which made things a lot easier,” Fried said.
Overall, the Yankees have permitted just three runs this season — tied with the 1943 Cardinals for the fewest by a team through its first five games.
It was the Yankees’ third shutout in their first five games, matching a feat previously achieved by the 2002 Bombers. They’re the fifth team to do it since 2000, also joining the 2013 Dodgers, ’15 Athletics and ’16 Dodgers.
Any time you can match the 68-94 2015 Athletics in a stat, that’s truly saying something! That said, the 1943 Cardinals won 105 games, so hopefully that IS a nice sign.
Are they making too big of a deal about this shutout deal? Of COURSE they are. Is the shutout deal still pretty fucking cool? Of COURSE it is.
Blisterless Max Fried is a fucking DELIGHT. I still don’t know what the fuck happened with him and Toronto. Is he tipping pitches? How can he dominate everyone else, but routinely get his ass kicked by Toronto?
The lineup still has some massive black holes. Ryan McMahon simply can’t be as bad of a hitter as he has been as a Yankee. It’s just not possible!
The header image is Max Fried pointing to Trent Grisham after Grisham saved a double. I used this for the header for two reasons. One, obviously Fried had to be the header image, but two, Grisham getting his speed back (he’s stealing bases again, and looked really fast on this catch) could mean that his defensive woes really were just physical (due to his injury last year) and that now that he is healthy, he’ll be back to being a strong defender, and the offense looks basically the same as last year for him.
If that’s true, that dude is going to make a SHIT ton of money as a free agent.
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