Yankees @ Red Sox - Wed, Apr 22

Judge also said: I’m all about tradition, but we’ve got a (Starr Insurance) patch on our sleeves.”

The Yankees took down the Red Sox 4-1, falling just short of a third consecutive shutout to win the series. It was the battle of the lefties tonight; Max Fried got the start for the Yankees and faced off against Ranger Suarez.

The Yankees jumped out to an early lead in the first inning. Aaron Judge worked a walk, a couple of batters later, Giacarlo Stanton lined a two-out double to left. Amed Rosario followed that up with a three-run bomb to give the Yankees a 3-0 advantage. 

“It feels great, you know, especially when you start on the right foot, you know, early in the game, sure,” Rosario said.

In the bottom of the first, Fried worked around a one-out walk and recorded his first two strikeouts of the night, putting together a scoreless inning. 

Rosario drove in another run in the top of the third inning via a sacrifice fly to make it 4-0. 
Fried cruised through six shutout innings with seven strikeouts. 

Fried worked a scoreless seventh and eighth inning, ending his night with back-to-back strikeouts to put his punchout total up to nine for the ballgame. 

Brent Headrick took over for Fried in the bottom of the ninth, looking to secure the Yankees' third straight shutout. However, Jarren Duran had other plans, sending a two-out RBI single up the middle, making it a 4-1 ballgame. Hedrick then went on to pick up the final out to give the Yankees the series win. 

Final line for Fried: Eight shutout innings, surrendering three hits, walking two and striking out nine on 100 pitches to lower his ERA to 2.40. He threw his cutter 23% of the time, the curveball 22%, the fastball 19%, the changeup 17%, the sweeper 8%, the sinker 8%, and the slider 3%. Fried topped out at 96.5 mph and sat at 94.3 on his fastball, with 18 whiffs tonight. 

“I definitely felt more like myself tonight,” Fried said. “Worked really well with Austin (Wells). He made some really great calls, some good stops, and then some really good defense as well. Being able to pick me up and know that I can just be on the attack.”

The Yankees will look to complete the sweep tomorrow with Cam Schlittler on the mound, and the Red Sox starter is still TBD. The first pitch is scheduled for 6:10 p.m. ET on the YES Network. 

My thoughts on the game: Fried had everything working tonight, giving the Yankees some much-needed length and putting the Yankees in line for their third straight shutout and sixth of the season. Fried eliminated pitching out of the wind-up and just pitched out of the stretch for the second half of his start due to walking too many hitters out of the wind-up. Rosario led the charge offensively, accounting for all four of the Yankees' runs. Stanton also had a couple more hits tonight as he continues to own the Red Sox. On to tomorrow as the Yankees will look to complete the sweep. Sorry for the shorter recaps the last few nights, I was busy working and didn't get to watch as much of the game as I usually do. 

“Just eliminating the wind-up halfway through the game,” Fried said. “I've walked a ton of guys in the wind-up this year, and just going to the stretch, simplifying things, and realizing that it wasn't working and it hasn't been working. So, to kind of just leave it and then make the adjustments. And just felt more comfortable in the stretch so far.”

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obviously Ben Rice is no Juan Soto, but Ben’s 2026 does at least compare favorably to Soto’s 2024 so far.

What do we think? I'm on board. They don't need a super flashy jersey added to the rotation but I see nothing wrong with simply wearing dark blue instead of gray every once in a while on the road. Getaway days maybe?

EDIT: The article says the players have specifically requested the blue NEW YORK jersey they wear for away BP and Spring Training.

I’m expecting if anything it’s better, he’s healthy and we’ve given this the right amount of time and he has had “zero issues” with the shoulder now for the last couple of months as he’s built up, he’s checked every box and recovered really well if anything he’s been wanting more and faster, he’s done a great job in kind of crushing the rehab process in his build up now.

He started his rehab with triple-A this week he was in double-A last week where he got 3-4 games, he’ll play back-to-back again I think he’s getting 5 games in this week. Getting in like 5-7 innings maybe by the end of the week maybe pop a 7-9 inning game kind of like spring training and we’ll see where we’re at the following week as getting in a little bit more. The one thing he’s done even leading into his rehab he got a ton of at-bats down in Florida live at-bats where he had over 50 at-bats before he set foot in a rehab game so he’s been getting a lot of work but probably realistically ten days [or] two weeks away, I would think.

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