{"id":570503,"date":"2026-02-13T16:24:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T16:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/570503\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T16:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T16:24:14","slug":"yankees-max-fried-motivated-by-alds-clunker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/570503\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees\u2019 Max Fried motivated by ALDS clunker"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA \u2014 Neither Max Fried nor Matt Blake could say for sure if the former tipped his pitches in Game 2 of the ALDS last fall.<\/p>\n

However, Blake, the Yankees\u2019 pitching coach, told the Daily News that \u201cwe definitely had some concerns\u201d as Fried surrendered eight hits, seven earned runs, a homer and two walks in Toronto on Oct. 5. The ace\u2019s clunker put the Yankees in a 2-0 series hole<\/a>; they eventually lost the ALDS in four games.<\/p>\n

Fried made sure to credit the Blue Jays, who advanced all the way to the World Series, for their offensive outburst. But he also noted that he was ready to make some tweaks if he got another chance to pitch in the series \u2014 an opportunity that never came \u2014 despite never confirming if Toronto had a tell.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a really good team,\u201d Fried told The News. \u201cThey were locked in. They had a really good team approach, and they were definitely swinging the bats well at a good time. So it\u2019s just one of those things where my approach wasn\u2019t working, and what I was trying to do was getting met with what they had planned. They had a really good series. If I had to do it again, I\u2019d definitely change things up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely knew that I was going to try to do something differently if I had an opportunity to throw in Game 5.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tipping, perfectly legal when done through natural means, has been a frequent topic of discussion when the Yankees and Blue Jays have played in recent years. Perhaps a new rule enforcing base coaches to stay in their boxes will limit the practice, but the Bombers, a bit obvious in their approach<\/a>, benefitted from tipping on several occasions last season, including some instances against Toronto<\/a>\u00a0during the regular season and postseason.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Sportsnet\u2019s Ben Nicholson-Smith<\/a> reported over the offseason that the Jays picked up on at least one on-field tell from the Yankees during the ALDS, though it was not clear if Fried was the victim in question.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Fried, who said he did not have any justified tipping concerns in his regular season starts against Toronto, is using his ALDS letdown as fuel as he prepares for his second season in pinstripes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say on a regular basis, probably a little bit,\u201d Fried said of how long the start bothered him during a Thursday press conference. \u201cYou try to move on from it. You don\u2019t want to ruin your everyday life from it. But every time that I get in the gym or I pick up a ball or anything that has to do with baseball, it\u2019s definitely a motivating factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Fried\u2019s year ended on a sour note, his debut season with the Yankees went well overall.<\/p>\n

With Gerrit Cole sidelined by Tommy John surgery, the lefty took over as the Yanks\u2019 No. 1 starter, earned an All-Star nod, went 19-5 with a 2.86 ERA, and logged a career-high 195.1 innings despite dealing with a mid-season blister. He also tossed 6.1 scoreless innings in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series against the Red Sox.<\/p>\n

Alas, his campaign did not conclude the way he or the Yankees wanted it to.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s all about winning,\u201d Fried said. \u201cYou just gotta make sure you go out there and win baseball games, and the end goal is to win a World Series. If you don\u2019t do that, it\u2019s not a good year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like it was a good year, but at the end, I didn\u2019t have the start that I needed to make. So that definitely left a bad taste in my mouth and motivated me throughout the offseason.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA \u2014 Neither Max Fried nor Matt Blake could say for sure if the former tipped his pitches…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2376],"tags":[6556,5,377,108,4,1690,62,2548,2547,151,22735,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-570503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-yankees","8":"tag-alds","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-blue-jays","11":"tag-max-fried","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-yankees","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkyankees","17":"tag-spring-training","18":"tag-tipping-pitches","19":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116064253726958899","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}