NEW YORK — 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 stuck out seven batters, allowing just one hit and one walk. He threw 57 pitches, with 37 of them going for strikes, and produced 10 swings and misses.
Fried received a little help from his defense from the outset. He allowed a leadoff base hit down the left-field line to Nick Gonzales, but Cody Bellinger corralled the ball in shallow left field and fired a one-hop dart to second base to nab Gonzales. From there, it was relatively smooth sailing for Fried, where he rarely looked like a pitcher who hadn’t thrown in the Majors since May 13.
On his first strikeout, Fried blew a 98.3 mph fastball past Bryan Reynolds to end the first inning. The left-hander only allowed two hard-hit balls out of the eight that were put into play. There were moments where it seemed like Fried had barely broken a sweat, like when he retired the last 12 batters he faced. And the first day that Fried and Game 1 starter Gerrit Cole were active on the Yankees roster at the same time, it’s the type of cameo that could have the club dreaming about the 1-2 punch’s impact down the stretch.
