The Yankees are handing the ball to Max Fried for ALDS Game 3, and he says the timing of his girlfriend’s expected delivery will not pull him off the mound. Fried, who is due to start Wednesday, said whatever happens away from baseball, he will be on the field when the game begins.
That is the reason his name is being searched now. The Yankees need him in a must-win playoff game, and Fried is carrying a personal deadline of his own, with his girlfriend due any day now. He did not want to talk about the personal side on Tuesday, but he made the boundary plain: family matters are separate from the job, and the job comes first on Wednesday.
Fried put it in his own words over Zoom from Yankee Stadium, saying he has a supportive family that understands this is his work and that it will not change what happens on Wednesday. Matt Blake said there was not much debate about whether Fried or Carlos Rodón would take the ball first, and added that Fried has been one of their guys, so the club wants to ride with him here.
The assignment comes with some proof attached. Fried missed 2 1/2 weeks in August with an elbow bruise, yet he returned in time to limit the Red Sox to one run on three hits in six innings of Game 2 of the wild-card series. The matchup ahead is different, though, because the Rays have shown two faces at the plate: a.678 OPS against southpaws and a.751 OPS against right-handers this season.
That split matters because Fried is a left-hander, but it does not make the decision simple. He has seen the Rays twice this season and allowed seven runs in 14 2/3 innings, and the club also went 3-for-3 in steals in that matchup. Fried said the Rays can do the little things, can put together a big inning and have some power, which is exactly the sort of opponent that can turn a playoff night fast if the Yankees are not careful.
Boone does have an escape hatch if the game gets messy early, and he could go to the mound before the outing unfolds too far. But the bigger picture is clear enough already: Gerrit Cole and Cam Schlittler handled Games 1 and 2, and Wednesday now belongs to Fried, a pitcher the Yankees are trusting with their season while the rest of his life waits just off the field.
