Alexander Wilson
The New York Yankees are 1-0, Max Fried is dominant, and Aaron Judge went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts in his first game of the season. The 2026 season started exactly as weird as it had to.
MLB’s first game broadcast exclusively on Netflix drew the whole country to Oracle Park, and the Bombers did not waste the moment. New York beat the San Francisco Giants 7-0 behind a massive second inning, six shutout frames from Fried, and a Jazz Chisholm Jr. performance that showed how this lineup operates when the whole machine runs. It is the Yankees’ fifth straight Opening Day win.
Fried Erases the Spring Noise
Fried had a difficult spring by his standards and entered Wednesday with legitimate questions about whether last year’s 19-5, 2.86 ERA version was still intact. Six and a third innings, two hits, zero runs, four strikeouts. Those questions answered themselves.
He never trailed. He never labored. Logan Webb, who threw 207 innings and fanned 224 batters in 2025, gave up more earned runs in five innings than in any single start he made all of last year.
Fried’s ground ball rate was 52 percent in 2025 and his walk rate was 6.4 percent. Both were on display in a game that never felt competitive after the second. Jake Bird, Brent Headrick, and Camilo Doval combined for 2.2 shutout innings behind him. The bullpen looked functional on the first night it has mattered since October.
The Second Inning Was a Statement
Webb is one of the best pitchers alive. On Wednesday, the Yankees turned the second inning into a demolition project. José Caballero doubled to left, scoring Giancarlo Stanton. Ryan McMahon followed with a single to center that scored both Chisholm and Caballero. Then Trent Grisham tripled to right to plate McMahon and Austin Wells. Five runs, six hits, one inning, and the Giants never recovered from it.
Chisholm was everywhere. He reached base three times, scored a run, and drove in another in the fifth when a fielder’s choice turned into a run on a Willy Adames throwing error. He looked like a player who wants to be the engine of this lineup on nights Judge is not producing.
Stanton added a 114.4 mph single in the fifth and finished with two hits and an RBI. McMahon went 1-for-3 with two RBI. Every Yankee reached base except Judge.
Judge’s Rough Night and Why It Doesn’t Matter Yet
Judge went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts, the first time since 2024 he has put up that line. He faced Webb twice and Keaton Winn and JT Brubaker the rest of the way and nothing clicked. His 2025 average exit velocity was 95.4 mph and his barrel rate was nearly 25 percent. He hit nothing hard tonight.
I would love to use Opening Night as a referendum on something, but one game is one game. Judge struck out four times on Opening Day in 2023 and was the AL MVP by October. The sample is too small to mean anything, except that Webb and Winn got him tonight and it will not happen again at this frequency.
One more footnote: Caballero initiated the first ABS ball-strike challenge in regular-season history in the fifth inning, the call was upheld, and history was made with minimal drama. The umpires won round one of many more to come.
The Yankees are 1-0, and the 2026 season is underway.
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