troyrecord
Facing elimination after dropping the first two games of the ALDS in St. Petersburg, Florida, the New York Yankees are handing the ball to left-hander Max Fried for Wednesday night's Game 3 against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees hope Fried can extend their season and spark a comeback in the best-of-five series.
This is precisely the scenario the Yankees envisioned when they signed Fried to an eight-year, $218 million contract two offseasons ago. Now 32, Fried understands the gravity of the moment. "This is where you leave everything out on the field," Fried said Tuesday. "There's nothing else to save anything for. So for me, I understand that the leash is probably going to be pretty small, and we have to do whatever we can to win."
The Yankees return home down 0-2 after two disappointing losses at Tropicana Field, including a 5-2 defeat in Monday night's Game 2 in which they committed four errors. Their offense managed only two runs in the two games, both coming on solo homers by Ben Rice in Game 2. That puts even more pressure on Fried, who went 5-5 with a 2.80 ERA over 20 starts in the regular season and then tossed six innings of one-run ball in the Yankees' Game 2 win over the Boston Red Sox in the Wild Card Series last week.
Fried's partner is expecting a child any day now, but the left-hander confirmed Tuesday that he will definitely start Game 3, no matter what. "I've got a really supportive family that understands that this is my job, and it's not going to affect what happens," Fried said.
Fried got the nod over fellow left-hander Carlos Rodón (7-3, 2.67 ERA in 16 starts), who hasn't pitched since Sept. 22, when he hurled eight shutout innings against the Rays in the Bronx. Rodón would start Game 4 on Thursday night if the Yankees extend the series. "It really comes down to him and Carlos both. Two great options there," pitching coach Matt Blake said of choosing Fried for Game 3. "I think [it's] just the way it lined up. We wanted to get Max involved in Game 3 and go from there. I wouldn't say there was too much debate about it, other than Max has been one of our guys and we want to ride with him here."
The Yankees are trying to become the 11th team in MLB history to overcome an 0-2 deficit in a best-of-five playoff series. No team has done it since 2017, when the Yankees won three in a row to rally past Cleveland in the ALDS. With Aaron Judge sidelined due to a calf strain, the Yankees' biggest reason for optimism is their starting pitching, beginning with Fried, who is 3-6 with a 5.03 ERA in 23 career playoff appearances (15 starts) but has delivered his share of marquee postseason moments, including six shutout innings in the clinching Game 6 of the 2021 World Series as a member of the Atlanta Braves.
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Manager Aaron Boone expressed confidence in Fried. "I expect him to give us a great chance to win," Boone said. "Look, the first two games, and especially Game 2, were not pretty. It was not good enough, obviously. But we've got a chance to go win a baseball game [Wednesday] night, and I feel like Max gives us a great opportunity to do that."
The Rays will counter with 36-year-old right-hander Nick Martinez, a first-time All-Star who finished 15-6 with a 3.10 ERA this season. But the biggest X-factor in Game 3 figures to be how well Fried can neutralize a speedy, contact-oriented Rays lineup that pressured the Yankees' defense relentlessly in Game 2. "You have to flush it and not let it affect you," Fried said of the Game 2 debacle. "But at the same time, use it as motivation to stop it right there and prove that doesn't define you, or that isn't the character, and it was just kind of, like, a freak game. It's important to have a little bit of pride and to be able to say, 'That's not us,' and we're going to prove it."
Working in Fried's favor is that the Rays performed much worse against left-handed pitching (.248 average, .678 OPS) during the regular season than they did against right-handers (.263 average, .751 OPS). That gives the Yankees some reason to dream that if Fried and Rodón can shut down the Rays in the Bronx, the series would return to St. Petersburg for a winner-take-all Game 5, with American League Cy Young Award favorite Cam Schlittler ready to take the ball. But it all starts with Wednesday — and with Fried — before the Yankees can think any further ahead. "We still feel like whoever is going to be on that field and on the 26-man roster is good enough to be able to win that [given] day, and we have that same mentality," Fried said. "And I know that everyone [Wednesday] is going to have that same feeling, that we're still a really great team and we expect to win."
Originally reported by troyrecord.