MILWAUKEE – Max Fried was put on notice immediately on Friday night – he was going to need his best stuff on the mound.
His counterpart – Brewers phenom Jacob Misiorowski – set down the Yankees' first three hitters with some of the fastest pitches ever seen in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008). It was going to be an uphill battle for New York’s offense, so Fried could ill afford significant struggles.
Come the second inning, that’s exactly what he ran into.
Fried was undone by a pair of walks and loads of soft contact during a frame in which every Milwaukee hitter came to the plate. The Yankees’ left-hander allowed four singles and four runs in the second despite not allowing a single hard-hit ball. And after logging 40 pitches in the frame, he departed the mound having put New York in a 4-0 hole.
Though the second inning turned out to be Fried’s only true blemish, the deficit proved too much for the Yankees’ bats to overcome as they fell, 6-0, in the series opener at American Family Field.
It was quite a surprising outcome considering how well Fried’s night started. Though he wasn’t able to match Misiorowski in terms of velocity, he still worked through the first inning on an efficient nine pitches. For a moment, it seemed the table was set for an old-fashioned pitchers’ duel.
But while Misiorowski continued blowing away Yankee hitters with triple-digit heat, Fried quickly lost the strike zone.
After opening the second by allowing a soft single from Gary Sánchez, Fried walked Andrew Vaughn and Luis Rengifo on eight consecutive pitches. Weak singles from Brandon Lockridge and Sal Frelick quickly put Milwaukee on the board with a pair of runs.
After allowing a run-scoring forceout, Fried got Jackson Chourio to hit a soft grounder right back to the pitcher’s mound. The four-time Gold Glove Award-winning pitcher initially made a motion to go after the ball, then pulled back in order to avoid any deflection that could interrupt an inning-ending double play. But the ball instead rolled into the outfield for another RBI single.
If there was any silver lining from Fried’s outing, it was the fact that such a grueling inning didn’t bring his night to an early close. The southpaw ended up pitching four more frames, giving a much-needed breather to a Yankees bullpen that was overworked on Thursday after original starter Ryan Weathers was scratched due to a viral infection.
New York’s offense, however, couldn’t touch Misiorowski. The second-year hurler consistently had Yankees hitters whiffing, hitting at least 103 mph with his four-seamer 10 times on the night. Misiorowski struck out 11, ensuring New York was never able to string together anything close to a rally.