Max Fried’s outing Thursday qualified as good enough that he bears zero blame for the Yankees’ ultimate 1-0 loss to the Mariners on Thursday.
It wasn’t, however, good enough that he was particularly happy with himself afterward.
“Definitely a grind,” Fried said, having tossed five innings of one-run ball, with Weston Wilson’s home run the only blemish on his record. “Didn’t feel like I necessarily had my best stuff and was a little erratic. Relied on [catcher] Ali [Sánchez] and defense. We had some nice defensive plays today.”
Fried required 88 pitches to get through his five innings of work and, mostly, pitched to contact. After getting Randy Arozarena and Julio Rodriguez looking to start the game, Fried struck out just two Mariners.
The Yankees’ infield defense, though, was excellent behind him, and the Mariners hit all of six balls hard against him, according to Statcast.
New York Yankees pitcher Max Fried (54) throws a pitch during the first inning against the Seattle Mariners on Thursday, August 13, 2026, at Yankee Stadium. Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post
George Lombard Jr. started one double play, made a clean turn at second on another and made a charging play on Brandon Donovan’s second-inning ground ball that Jazz Chisholm Jr. was caught waiting on.
A 2-2 cutter that hung in the middle of the zone for Wilson was the only real mistake of Fried’s day, and even that cleared the left field wall at Yankee Stadium by all of one row.
“Definitely wish I had that two-strike back to Wilson,” Fried said. “But all in all, grinded. Definitely a hard-fought game today.”
To the extent you could call anything a problem, it was that Fried threw more pitches than necessary, perhaps costing himself a chance to go deeper into the game.
New York Yankees pitcher Max Fried pitches in the first inning against the Seattle Mariners on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. Robert Sabo for NY Post
“I think probably a couple of those innings, he had a chance to have a quick inning and they maybe worked their way on or worked foul balls and things like that, longer counts,” manager Aaron Boone said. “So it made for a longer day out there for him in some put-away situations.
“I thought [his] stuff again was really good. Got a couple of double play balls that helped him.”
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Indeed, if this qualifies as underwhelming, the Yankees will qualify as happy with the bigger-picture outlook from their ace. Thursday was Fried’s third straight start — and fourth in five — of allowing one run or fewer.
“Sign me up for one run, getting us into the middle of the game,” Boone said. “We just weren’t able to do much offensively. But I thought he threw the ball pretty well overall.”