{"id":366718,"date":"2026-10-07T10:42:33","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T10:42:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/366718\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T10:42:33","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T10:42:33","slug":"max-fried-will-pitch-for-yankees-in-alds-game-3-whether-his-girlfriend-gives-birth-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/366718\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Fried will pitch for Yankees in ALDS Game 3 \u2014 whether his girlfriend gives birth or not"},"content":{"rendered":"

With their season on the line, the Yankees are giving the ball to Max Fried<\/a> \u2014 no matter what.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fried\u2019s girlfriend is pregnant and due any day now. Tuesday, Fried said he did not wish to talk about the \u201cpersonal stuff,\u201d but he acknowledged the exciting development for his family while stating that whatever happens, he will be on the mound.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a really supportive family that understands that this is my job, and it\u2019s not going to affect what happens [Wednesday],\u201d Fried said over Zoom from Yankee Stadium, where some Yankees worked out on the eve of a must-win Game 3<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not that he needed further incentive to attempt to make quick work of the Rays.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perhaps the lefty is better built to neutralize a pesky Tampa Bay lineup than Game 1 starter Gerrit Cole<\/a> (five innings, one run) or Game 2\u2019s Cam Schlittler<\/a> (4 \u00b9\/\u2083 innings, four runs, two earned). Fried, an athlete with the deepest pitch mix on the team, is less strikeout-reliant than his rotation mates. Plus, the Rays owned the sixth-worst OPS against southpaws this season (.678) and the fifth-best mark against righties (.751).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both Yankees options for the start \u2014 Fried and Carlos Rod\u00f3n \u2014 are lefties, and pitching coach Matt Blake said there wasn\u2019t much debate about the arm they preferred first, with Rod\u00f3n set for Game 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NewYankees pitcher Max Fried and his girlfriend Reni Meyer-Whalley attend an introductory press conference at Yankee Stadium, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cMax has been one of our guys, and we want to ride with him here,\u201d Blake said of Fried, who is now fully built up after missing 2 \u00b9\/\u2082 weeks in August with an elbow bruise and limited the Red Sox to one run on three hits in six innings of Game 2 of the wild-card series.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fried pitched twice this season \u2014 allowing seven runs in 14 \u00b2\/\u2083 innings (4.30 ERA) \u2014 against a Rays lineup that offers some of everything except strikeouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their top three can demolish pitches, as Jonathan Aranda demonstrated to Cole. They all make contact, as Liam Hicks and Chandler Simpson, in particular, demonstrated to Schlittler. They will run (3-for-3 in steals) and they will pressure a Yankees defense that looked rattled Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey do all the little things, and they can also have the big inning,\u201d Fried said. \u201cThey\u2019ve got some power.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

So he will not be surprised by the opposing lineup. Or messages that could change his personal life forever. Or manager Aaron Boone walking to the mound early, at the first sign of trouble, in a game in which the Yankees bullpen could be emptied and Cole is expected to be among those available.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing else to save anything for,\u201d Fried said before his 24th career playoff game. \u201cSo for me, I understand that the leash is probably going to be pretty small, and we have to do whatever we can to win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s just leave everything out there, and we have to win tomorrow\u2019s game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With their season on the line, the Yankees are giving the ball to Max Fried \u2014 no matter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[34720,20,5515,9,11,10,321,319,25678,2088],"class_list":["post-366718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-max-fried","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-sports","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-wags"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}