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 the pitching after just five games? Of COURSE they are. Is the pitch 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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Judge is stepping in the bucket. Looks like he was doing that in Spring Training too. Seems fixable.
Imagine how good this rotation will be for the six weeks between Cole’s return and his next TJS.
“McMahon can’t be this bad” is what we said weeks after Joey Gallo got here. Maybe he is this bad. The genius GM strikes again. This is Donaldson version 2.0.
i’m hardly a cashman defender but those deals were much worse and should have gotten him fired.
mcmahon is somewhere between whatever and tbd
Brian, why are you ready to say that Grisham’s offense looks to be like last year’s? That would be INCREDIBLE, but it seems incredibly unlikely. What’s making you suddenly make a declaration like that at this early stage?
If they keep pitching like this, they’re going to win a LOT of games.
Of course, since no team has EVER pitched like this for long, one tends to think they’’ll eventually going to need some actual offense.
Man, it only took about 200 acquisitions, but Fried has been the best of the best pitchers that Cashman as acquired. He’s a true stud as long as they can keep his blister problem under control.
I mean, Gerrit Cole just won the Cy Young, ya know?
The question with Fried is a little bit o a troubling rep he’s building up for not stepping up when the pressure’s highest. Probably SSS, if he’s resolved that – this is the guy I wanted, trusted him to be consistently good even above the Crotch, if he can take the real pressure, he’ll be all that.
Even that is weird, since he also threw six shutout innings to win the World Series in Game 6 of the 2021 Series.
agreed. seems like some people think he’s not an “ace” but he’s been incredibly consistent at a very high level….
anyway, we are lucky to have him.
“lucky”
A shitload of money might have something to do with that.
Well, Cole was as obvious as the day is long. He was seen as one of the very best pitchers available not only that year, but going 4-5 years as well. Everyone wanted him.
In my mind, Fried was an attractive pitcher, but he was further down on the list and IIRC the Yankees weren’t even really connected to him until Soto turned them down and a couple of days later they signed Fried. He’s been great, more than expected, since they signed him.