{"id":672108,"date":"2026-05-15T07:26:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T07:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/672108\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T07:26:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T07:26:17","slug":"sports-surgeon-discusses-yankees-max-frieds-initial-elbow-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/672108\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports surgeon discusses Yankees\u2019 Max Fried\u2019s initial elbow diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the New York Yankees initially announced that Max Fried left Wednesday\u2019s 7-0 loss to the Baltimore Orioles with posterior soreness in his left elbow, an orthopedic surgeon interviewed by The Athletic thought the designation was notable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey probably said that (posterior) because he\u2019s had (a) previous Tommy John, and they didn\u2019t want it to be confused with his prior Tommy John surgery,\u201d said Dr. Laith Jazrawi, chief of sports medicine at NYU Langone. \u201cThat\u2019s probably why they were a little more specific on this one. \u2026 Having posterior elbow pain in a pitcher or in an overhead athlete, there are certain things that are specific that we see with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jazrawi, who has not treated Fried nor seen his medicals, said posterior soreness isn\u2019t \u201catypical\u201d for pitchers and isn\u2019t \u201cuncommon for someone who\u2019s had a prior Tommy John surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old Fried, who had Tommy John surgery in 2014, was removed after just 61 pitches.<\/a> He gave up five hits and three earned runs in three innings, striking out two and walking one. Fried will undergo tests on Thursday in New York City.<\/p>\n

Fried said he felt hyperextension, or the feeling you get when you \u201cbang the back of that elbow, tricep area.\u201d He added that he expects to be on the mound \u201csooner rather than later.\u201d Manager Aaron Boone said he was \u201cnot that concerned\u201d after talking to Fried about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could have triceps tendonitis,\u201d Jazrawi said. \u201cYou could have loose bodies back there. \u2026 You could have spurs back there.\u201d The bone spurs could be created as a result of the \u201csheer force\u201d exerted on the elbow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s (numerous) reasons\u201d Fried could be experiencing elbow pain, Jazrawi said.<\/p>\n

Jazrawi added that doctors would certainly examine Fried\u2019s UCL, but that \u201cit\u2019s usually pretty good\u201d for players who have already undergone Tommy John. But there could be reason for concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cCould the ligament be failing again, like it failed the first time?\u201d the doctor said. \u201cAbsolutely. And one of the early signs of that is posterior elbow pain, which you can get. Or, more than likely, if he had Tommy John a while ago \u2026 (it could be) posterior elbow spurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, they\u2019re going to look at the integrity of the ligament. My guess is that it\u2019s going to show increased signal but an intact ligament. That\u2019s what we usually see with these. But he\u2019s an older player, he\u2019s had a Tommy John a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any long-term injury to Fried would be terrible news to the Yankees, who have mostly been healthy, save for the right calf strain that put Giancarlo Stanton on the injured list.<\/p>\n

In the next couple weeks, they expect Gerrit Cole to finish his own Tommy John surgery rehabilitation and return to the rotation. Carlos Rod\u00f3n made his season debut last week. Together with Fried, they represent the Yankees\u2019 trio of starters with nine-figure contracts. In the interim, the club has received strong starting pitching from Cam Schlittler, Will Warren and Ryan Weathers.<\/p>\n

Going into Wednesday, Fried hadn\u2019t been quite the same pitcher he was last year, when he finished fourth in the American League Cy Young Award voting and received his third All-Star nomination, finishing with a 19-5 record and a 2.86 ERA in a career-high 32 starts.<\/p>\n

His overall numbers had been strong (2.91 ERA, nine starts), but his walks were slightly up and his strikeouts were slightly down. Recently, he abandoned pitching from the windup in favor of pitching exclusively from the stretch to help corral his command. His average fastball velocity (93.8 mph) had also dipped from where it was in 2025 (94.8 mph).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the New York Yankees initially announced that Max Fried left Wednesday\u2019s 7-0 loss to the Baltimore Orioles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,2704,85],"class_list":["post-672108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}