Fried is back and already making Yankees fans forget the elbow scare

The Yankees didn't wait around. Fried had been shut down since mid-May with a bone bruise in his left elbow, the kind of injury that makes a front office nervous about a pitcher owed money into the 2030s. He needed just one rehab tune-up at Triple-A Scranton, three strikeouts over 52 pitches, before New York decided he was ready. So instead of a slow-play second rehab start, they threw him right into the fire: Game 2 of a doubleheader against the Pirates.

MLB Trade Rumors

@mlbtraderumors

Yankees To Activate Max Fried t.co/72Bz6BJqZH

That's an aggressive call for a guy who signed the richest contract ever given to a left-handed pitcher, an 8-year, $218 million deal that runs through 2032. But the Yankees are a team that can't afford to babysit innings in late July, not with a rotation that's needed every healthy arm it can get. So they bet on the stuff still being there. It was.

Rob Friedman

@PitchingNinja

Max Fried, 98mph ⛽️

A guy coming off seven weeks on the shelf touching 98 isn't nothing, but the fastball was really just the setup. Fried's whole game lives on the shapes around it, the cutter that runs in on righties' hands and a changeup that's become one of the nastiest in the sport when it's tunneling off that heater.

Rob Friedman

@PitchingNinja

Max Fried, Nasty 89mph Changeup. 👌

By the time he snapped off the cutter for his seventh strikeout, it was clear this wasn't a cautious, feel-it-out return start, it was Fried pitching like the elbow issue never happened.

Rob Friedman

@PitchingNinja

Max Fried, Filthy 89mph Cutter. ✂️ 7th K

The Yankees needed exactly this. A rotation anchored by Gerrit Cole can't survive its No. 2 starter being a question mark in the stretch run, and a full-strength Fried changes the math on their pitching depth heading into August. If the elbow holds up, this is the version of Fried that made the Braves so good for years, and the version New York is paying for through 2032. Prop bettors and fantasy managers are already noticing, and so is a Yankees front office that just got a very expensive weight lifted off its shoulders.