Alexander Wilson
We can save the Gerrit Cole conversation for when he actually takes the mound in a regular season game. Until then, the New York Yankees already have their ace, and his name is Max Fried.
Wednesday against the Red Sox, Fried threw eight scoreless innings, allowing three hits, two walks, and striking out nine batters on exactly 100 pitches. His ERA dropped to 2.40 over 41.1 innings to start the season. His full profile this year shows a pitcher giving up the fewest home runs of his career, walking fewer batters than he did a year ago, posting a 45% ground ball rate, and operating with the kind of composure you expect from a pitcher who has been in big games before.
The strikeouts are down to 6.97 per nine innings, and his velocity is sitting about 1 mph below where it was last season. Neither concerns me much at this point. Velocity on left-handed starters typically climbs as the weather warms and the arm reaches full capacity, and a pitcher with Fried’s command and pitch mix doesn’t need premium strikeout numbers to dominate. He’s doing it a different way this year, and it’s working.
The Adjustment That Changed Wednesday’s Game
The detail that made Wednesday particularly interesting was something that happened in the second inning. After walking Andruw Monasterio, pitching coach Matt Blake called out to Fried from the dugout with a message that wasn’t particularly subtle. “Hey, it’s not working. When are you going to cut it out?” Fried recalled Blake saying about his full windup.
Fried made the call right there. He dropped the full windup and went entirely out of the stretch for the rest of the night. “For whatever reason this year, I’ve walked a ton of guys in the windup and I haven’t walked anyone in the stretch,” Fried said, per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. “You’ve got to suck up your pride and just say, whatever’s working, that’s what you’ve got to go and do.”
It’s not just a practical adjustment for Fried; it’s a change in mentality. The willingness to abandon something mid-game because the data is telling you it isn’t working is exactly what separates good pitchers from great ones. He walked one batter in the two innings before the change. He walked one the rest of the night. Eight scoreless innings total.
What the Yankees Have Right Now
Even when Cole and Carlos Rodon return, Fried is the number one starter on this team. That status isn’t going to change based on roster additions. He’s earned it through the first month of the season, and the Red Sox lineup on Wednesday is not a bad offense to blank for eight innings.
The Yankees are fortunate to have a pitcher of this caliber leading their rotation during what has been a complicated early stretch. Every five days, Fried has given them a chance to win regardless of what’s happening with the rest of the staff. That’s what an ace does.
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