Just like the rest of the Yankees in this series, Max Fried wasn’t good enough.
Pitching in an elimination game for the second time in his career, the lefty at times looked dominant but allowed runs in three of his last four innings in Wednesday’s season-ending 4-3 loss to the Rays in The Bronx in Game 3 of the ALDS.
The Yankees said prior to the game that there wasn’t really a debate about whether to go with Fried or fellow southpaw Carlos Rodón, with pitching coach Matt Blake saying Tuesday, “Max has been one of our guys and we want to ride him here.”
It was an understandable decision, even as Rodón was perhaps the rotation’s best pitcher down the stretch outside of AL Cy Young favorite Cam Schlittler.
But now the Yankees head into the offseason with Rodón not having been a factor in the postseason.
The real issue the Yankees had against their AL East rivals, whom they couldn’t catch in the division and proved to be no match for in the playoffs, was their lineup.
Fried, just like Gerrit Cole and Schlittler — the starters of the first two games of the series — was forced to be nearly perfect.
And he wasn’t.
He gave up a leadoff single to Jonny DeLuca in the third. A one-out single by Taylor Walls got the rally going and Jonathan Aranda drove in the game’s first run, but Aranda went too far past first on the play and the Yankees ended up getting the final out on a rundown involving Walls.
The Yankees got the run back in the bottom of the inning, but Fried faltered again in the fourth, this time allowing an opposite-field homer by Ryan Vilade.
Again, he was bailed out in the bottom of the frame and retired six straight before Junior Caminero ripped a single up the middle that nearly got Fried with two outs in the sixth.
Victor Mesa Jr. followed with a two-run homer to right-center that ended Fried’s outing after 5 ²/₃ innings.
It was not the ace-like outing the Yankees were looking for from the left-hander after he’d been fully built up following a 2 ½-week absence in August due to inflammation in his left elbow related to the bone bruise he had in the area earlier in the season.
Fried has now had very mixed results in four playoff starts with the Yankees, dominating the Red Sox in the wild-card series both last year and a week ago, but struggling badly in the ALDS in Toronto last season before allowing four runs in less than six innings Wednesday.
