<img alt="Kansas City Royals v Atlanta Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/c3vLvyjay02TXPTfeLZvaYInsiI=/0x0:6508x4339/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73616748/2174050864.0.jpg">
Photo by Matthew Grimes Jr./Atlanta Braves/Getty Images
If this is Fried’s last start in Atlanta, well, he made it a great one. 2024 has been a whirlwind of a season, and Max Fried has certainly felt it too. In what could be his last season in Atlanta, the southpaw had an unthinkably bad start to the year, then got back on his horse, then got hurt warming up for the All-Star Game, and then suffered a string of really frustrating starts. All of that brought him and the Braves to tonight, in pretty close to a must-win situation, and Fried delivered, and then some. If this is Fried’s final start as a Brave in Atlanta, he made it a great one, nearly throwing a Maddux to help the Braves coast to a 3-0 win over the Royals.
Fried finished with a 9/2 K/BB ratio in 8 2⁄3 scoreless innings, but that doesn’t really tell much of the story. This wasn’t a laborious 8 2⁄3 with high-stress pitches in a close game; this was Max Fried, with nearly total command of his stuff, bamboozling the Royals left and right. It took Fried just 36 pitches to get through his first nine batters, and then he had a seven-pitch fourth that included an infield single and ended on a pickoff. His blip of a four-pitch walk to Yuli Gurriel in the fifth was part of a ten-pitch inning (including the walk), and then the next inning only featured eight Fried pitches. In the seventh, he allowed a one-out double, but even so, it was just an 11-pitch inning. In the eighth, he got two looking strikeouts in a nine-pitch effort. Seriously, it was crazy.
In the ninth, a Maddux was easily within reach... but Fried didn’t quite get across the finish line. It took him nine pitches to get the first two outs, and he had plenty of wiggle room... but up came Bobby Witt Jr., who drew a five-pitch walk. Up came Michael Massey, who has been awful against lefties but doubled earlier in the game, and he hit Fried’s 98th and final pitch of the night into right for a double that brought the tying run to the plate and knocked Fried out of the game.
Raisel Iglesias trotted out of the bullpen and had probably one of the most anticlimactic appearances of his career, throwing literally a single pitch to Salvador Perez. The Kansas City backstop hit a generic lineout to left, and though Fried won’t add another Maddux to his tally, the Braves ended up finishing the game with a 99-pitch shutout.
It’s hard to say too many good things about Fried tonight. He collected five strikeouts the first time through — two on the sweeper, two on the curve, one on a sinker. He then largely shifted to his usual pitch-to-contact mode, before striking out three of four at one point. This is the Fried the Braves wanted to give at least one more shot in the playoffs, and they came a bit closer to having that chance with his effort tonight.
But, you can’t win a baseball game just by Madduxing the other team. You also need to score a run somewhere. Fortunately for the Braves, they scored three. They drew two walks against Brady Singer in the first (both drawn by lefty batters), but Jorge Soler struck out to end that frame. In the fourth, Soler singled through the left side, and Sean Murphy got a very bad hanging 0-2 sweeper from Singer and mashed it into left field for a laser of a two-run homer. The Braves tried to get more off Singer the third time through, in the sixth, as Soler drew a one-out walk and Ramon Laureano barreled a ball into left-center for a double, but Singer eviscerated both Murphy and Gio Urshela with 0-2 breaking pitches way off the plate.
The Braves got their third run in bizarro, “What the hell am I watching?” fashion. Carlos Hernandez, in his second inning of work relieving Singer, issued a leadoff walk to Marcell Ozuna, who moved to second on a slow groundout. With Laureano at the dish, Ozuna took off for third base (?!), drawing a horrendous throw from Perez that was airmailed into left field. Ozuna easily scampered home and then had a raucous time in the dugout, as his teammates basically threw him an impromptu party for stealing his first base of the year.
But, that aside, it was basically the Max Fried show tonight, and with the Mets losing in Milwaukee at the time of writing, the odds are now better that he’ll have another chance to make his team proud before he hits the free agent market.
<img alt="Kansas City Royals v Atlanta Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/c3vLvyjay02TXPTfeLZvaYInsiI=/0x0:6508x4339/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73616748/2174050864.0.jpg">
Photo by Matthew Grimes Jr./Atlanta Braves/Getty Images
If this is Fried’s last start in Atlanta, well, he made it a great one. 2024 has been a whirlwind of a season, and Max Fried has certainly felt it too. In what could be his last season in Atlanta, the southpaw had an unthinkably bad start to the year, then got back on his horse, then got hurt warming up for the All-Star Game, and then suffered a string of really frustrating starts. All of that brought him and the Braves to tonight, in pretty close to a must-win situation, and Fried delivered, and then some. If this is Fried’s final start as a Brave in Atlanta, he made it a great one, nearly throwing a Maddux to help the Braves coast to a 3-0 win over the Royals.
Fried finished with a 9/2 K/BB ratio in 8 2⁄3 scoreless innings, but that doesn’t really tell much of the story. This wasn’t a laborious 8 2⁄3 with high-stress pitches in a close game; this was Max Fried, with nearly total command of his stuff, bamboozling the Royals left and right. It took Fried just 36 pitches to get through his first nine batters, and then he had a seven-pitch fourth that included an infield single and ended on a pickoff. His blip of a four-pitch walk to Yuli Gurriel in the fifth was part of a ten-pitch inning (including the walk), and then the next inning only featured eight Fried pitches. In the seventh, he allowed a one-out double, but even so, it was just an 11-pitch inning. In the eighth, he got two looking strikeouts in a nine-pitch effort. Seriously, it was crazy.
In the ninth, a Maddux was easily within reach... but Fried didn’t quite get across the finish line. It took him nine pitches to get the first two outs, and he had plenty of wiggle room... but up came Bobby Witt Jr., who drew a five-pitch walk. Up came Michael Massey, who has been awful against lefties but doubled earlier in the game, and he hit Fried’s 98th and final pitch of the night into right for a double that brought the tying run to the plate and knocked Fried out of the game.
Raisel Iglesias trotted out of the bullpen and had probably one of the most anticlimactic appearances of his career, throwing literally a single pitch to Salvador Perez. The Kansas City backstop hit a generic lineout to left, and though Fried won’t add another Maddux to his tally, the Braves ended up finishing the game with a 99-pitch shutout.
It’s hard to say too many good things about Fried tonight. He collected five strikeouts the first time through — two on the sweeper, two on the curve, one on a sinker. He then largely shifted to his usual pitch-to-contact mode, before striking out three of four at one point. This is the Fried the Braves wanted to give at least one more shot in the playoffs, and they came a bit closer to having that chance with his effort tonight.
But, you can’t win a baseball game just by Madduxing the other team. You also need to score a run somewhere. Fortunately for the Braves, they scored three. They drew two walks against Brady Singer in the first (both drawn by lefty batters), but Jorge Soler struck out to end that frame. In the fourth, Soler singled through the left side, and Sean Murphy got a very bad hanging 0-2 sweeper from Singer and mashed it into left field for a laser of a two-run homer. The Braves tried to get more off Singer the third time through, in the sixth, as Soler drew a one-out walk and Ramon Laureano barreled a ball into left-center for a double, but Singer eviscerated both Murphy and Gio Urshela with 0-2 breaking pitches way off the plate.
The Braves got their third run in bizarro, “What the hell am I watching?” fashion. Carlos Hernandez, in his second inning of work relieving Singer, issued a leadoff walk to Marcell Ozuna, who moved to second on a slow groundout. With Laureano at the dish, Ozuna took off for third base (?!), drawing a horrendous throw from Perez that was airmailed into left field. Ozuna easily scampered home and then had a raucous time in the dugout, as his teammates basically threw him an impromptu party for stealing his first base of the year.
But, that aside, it was basically the Max Fried show tonight, and with the Mets losing in Milwaukee at the time of writing, the odds are now better that he’ll have another chance to make his team proud before he hits the free agent market.
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