From Jason Beck:
As Max Fried made the long walk across Comerica Park’s outfield towards center field Wednesday afternoon to begin his pregame warmup routine, the Yankees left-hander caught a glimpse of high-school teammate Jack Flaherty doing the same on the Tigers side.
They’d seen each other in their Major League travels plenty of times. But never like this, never against each other.
“It was cool to be able to walk out before the game and give him a little head nod,” Fried said.
As both would say, the former Harvard-Westlake rotation mates weren’t facing each other; they were facing the opposing lineup. Still, for fans, the high school reunion didn’t disappoint.
“We’re both competitive, and so we knew we were locked in and had a job to do,” Fried said. “But it was fun. It was a cool experience, but we lost the first two [games] of the series, and I just wanted to make sure that I did whatever I could to keep us in the game to hopefully come out with the win.”
For much of the day, Fried and Flaherty traded zeroes, combining to strike out 20 batters. All the scoring in the Yankees’ 4-3 win came against the respective bullpens, including Ben Rice’s go-ahead two-run homer off Tyler Holton in the seventh and three ninth-inning runs off Yankees closer Devin Williams. But to Flaherty, the difference came in the extra five outs Fried delivered for his club, earning the victory with seven scoreless innings, no walks and 11 strikeouts.
I mean, come the fuck on, right? The Yankees have had other non-Cole pitchers have as good or better games than Fried, but the big difference between Fried and them is that this just seemed NORMAL. This is just how good Max Fried is. This isn’t like him pitching at the top of his game. This IS his game. He really is THIS good. It’s nice to see the Yankees actually get what they paid for with Fried, just like they did with Cole and CC Sabathia, and not that stupid fucking nutjob, Carlos Rodon (to be fair to Rodon, he had a major injury his first season here, and who knows how the heck that has affected him). Having an ace is a really nice thing for a team to have.
Once Clarke Schmidt gets back, and Luis Gil gets healthy, they’ll finally have a real rotation. It would be nice if Will Warren develops a bit more into a reliable starter. I still like the idea of trying to stretch Brent Headrick out. There’s no room for him in the bullpen, but there could be room for him the rotation, and he was a starter as recently as 2023!
The offense wasn’t great, but it was pretty good. Devin Williams sucked again. More and more, I’m looking at him as a one and done here, so I can’t even give a shit about how much he sucked. I think a lot of it was it not being a save situation. Some of these dudes just need the adrenaline from a save situation to kick into overdrive. Williams has been here for 12 games now, and has yet to get into a save situation! Seven wins, and NO save opportunities for him!
The featured image is Max Fried celebrating as hard as he can, which is pretty hilarious.
Technically it wasn’t a save situation but it wasn’t exactly a blowout either. The team just lost 3 straight and the staff was working on a shutout. That should get a little adrenalin flowing.
On Fried – exactly. The starters on the market were pretty good, but he was the best.
Agree with John on Williams. How can he have those stats and be this shaky?
I don’t believe Devin’s shitshow yesterday had anything to do with it not being a save situation. He’d been shaky in his previous outings and had every incentive to be lights out and preserve a win that avoided a sweep.
Era 12.00 WHIP 3.00 about triple his career WHIP.
Yankees haven’t done this yet
https://x.com/Steelersdepot/status/1910037418285350982
Yikes!
Bellinger dad as Yankee 621 OPS. Son 562
More RBIs than Soto!
It’s fascinating how Soto is still obviously an outstanding player, but batting in front of Pete Alonso, he’s not getting quite the same pitches to hit as he was when he was batting in front of Aaron Judge.
The marked difference in approaches between Weaver and Williams really frustrates me. Weaver attacks constantly, while Williams just fucks around and fucks around. Williams has such great stuff that he can still get Ks while fucking around, but it’s so frustrating as he does it, and it takes up so many fucking pitches.
The idea that you’re not aggressively attacking Trey fucking Sweeney is maddening.
Yeah, my sentiments re: Williams exactly. It’s like watching Stroman pitch. Nibbling around the edges, putting runners on, and slowly digging holes.
Also, yay Ben Rice!
Between Goldschmidt, Bellinger, and Stanton, at least 1 out of three won’t play so there should be room for Rice to get a lot of ABs this season.
The problem is if Rice is raking and Stanton or Belli suck, Rice will still be the odd man out.
I’m not giving up on our closer after 4 games. In 1978 after his first 4 games the big free agent closer (Goose Gossage) was 0-3 with a blown save. In the Bronx Zoo the story is that as the car drove Gossage the mound (yeah! They used to drive relief pitchers from the bullpen!) Mickey Rivers threw himself in front of the car screaming “no!”
In the end it all worked out and they won the WS and Goose is in the HOF.
Oh, I’m not giving up on him at all. Just that A. He annoys me, and B. Since I figure he’s a one-and-done here, I’m not all that invested in him as a player.
Of course nobody’s totally giving up on him. But it’s crazy that with his crazy run-suppressing stats he looks like… what we’ve seen.
I really do wonder whether, after the world watched that at bat, players didn’t all listen to Alonso’s dissection of the AB and start applying the same approach. The approach makes sense – but it would be easy enough to add a pitch that would defeat it.
Bosox win in 10.
I can live with it so long as it is against another AL East team.
Clarke 4ip 0r 3h 6k 0bb
He better be replacing Cookie.
Ben Hess pro debut with the @HVRenegades!
4 2/3 IP
2 H
0 R
1 BB
9 K
I see the full 2003 screening tests got out and as expected literally everyone on the Red Sox was juicing. Yankees were Clemens, Pettitte, Giambi, and Soriano.
Link?
Heyman posted it on Twitter
Good luck getting 3 games in this weekend.
Yanks in first place! On pace to win 94 games. Judge to have over 250 RBIs. This is going to be a great season!
Happy upcoming holidays to all who observe anything.
Happy pesach!
Rain has stopped downtown
No Martian vs Ray
https://x.com/BryanHoch/status/1910775076661698648?t=j7UyNGrMgqVLYmV3F3WqUw&s=19
I think it’s reasonable to do this so long as Grisham is hitting.
Sure. I’d like to know what the Yankee plans are going forward. Do they see some small correctable flow with the Martian batting right handed? Are they think of turning him into a strictly left handed hitter like Cedric Mullins? He has a 917 OPS hitting left and 366 hitting right. The YES broadcasters treat it like he’s better (850/700ish) from the left ignoring the out of this world split. Has any beat writer ever asked Boone or Cash?
Not good. Praying for rain all weekend.
4/11: RHP Marcus Stroman (0-0, 7.27) vs. LHP Robbie Ray (2-0, 3.18) +4.09
4/12: RHP Will Warren (0-0, 6.00) vs. RHP Jordan Hicks (1-0, 2.38) +3.62
4/13: LHP Carlos Rodón (1-2, 5.19) vs. RHP Logan Webb (1-0, 1.89) +3.30