Max Fried would rather forget the start he made for the New York Yankees on the 24th of July in 2025. The first three innings went as smoothly as Fried would have hoped, as he sat down the first nine Toronto Blue Jays hitters in order. However, he allowed two runs to score in the bottom of the fourth inning, and then the floodgates opened in the fifth, thanks in large part to Fried’s blunders.Fried put himself in a pickle he couldn’t get himself out of. He walked Davis Schneider with one out in the inning and then allowed him to move to second on a wild pitch to George Springer. The Yankees lefty then proceeded to walk Springer, move the runners to second and third with yet another wild pitch, and for the pièce de résistance, he allowed both runners to score when he made an errant throw to home plate after fielding a weak ground ball from Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
The Yankees’ marquee offseason signing then allowed yet another run in the sixth inning, after back-to-back extra-base hits from the Blue Jays, and that was the end of his night — six runs allowed (four earned, but might as well have been six), two crucial wild pitches, three walks, and just three strikeouts — a poor outing for him. And before he was pulled from the game, there was blood on his pinky finger, raising even more concerns.
However, Fried shut those concerns down after the Yankees’ 8-4 loss.
“It happens. That’s nothing to worry about,” Fried said, per Gary Phillips of New York Daily News.
Yankees have to clean up their game, especially on turf
Making errors is a part of baseball. But making four of them in one game is not. The Yankees may point to the difficulty of playing on turf as the reason behind their miscues, but even then, a team that wants to compete for a World Series title cannot be playing this brand of careless baseball.
The Blue Jays, in particular, will be their biggest test in their quest to win the AL East. Toronto has now built a four-game cushion in the division standings. At the very least, that’s the last the Yankees will be seeing of Rogers Centre, at least in the regular season.
They will now set their sights on their tough slate ahead. They will be facing the 58-44 Philadelphia Phillies and the 53-50 Tampa Bay Rays in successive series, and they will have to clean up their act lest they fall behind the Blue Jays even further.
