BOSTON — Short of stepping up to the plate himself, Max Fried couldn’t do much more to bolster the Yankees’ efforts on Sunday afternoon at Fenway Park.
Despite his excellent track record of pitching after a Yankees’ loss, the left-hander was left ruing his performance, striving for perfection in a 2-0 defeat to the Red Sox, where he surrendered only two runs over seven innings.
“From my perspective, I had to improve and keep pace with [Red Sox starter Brayan Bello],” Fried stated. “He was putting up a lot of zeros, and in a game like that, I needed to match him and deliver zeros as well.”
Bello stifled the Yankees across seven shutout innings while Fried gave up a single run in the first inning and another in the fifth.
Entering Sunday, the Yankees were 8-0 in Fried’s starts following a loss. He had given up just five earned runs in 54 innings during those starts.
But they could not rely on Fried alone Sunday as their bats went silent.
“Gave us seven strong, he did everything he needed to do to give us a chance to win a ballgame,” manager Aaron Boone said.
In the bottom of the first, after Fried had erased Anthony Volpe’s fielding error by getting a double play ball, Romy Gonzalez extended the inning with a triple to right field. Trevor Story blooped a single to left to bring him in for the 1-0 lead.
Rafael Devers doubled the lead in the fifth inning, sneaking a solo home run just over the Green Monster.
Fried said his 94 mph fastball missed the location he wanted — J.C. Escarra was set up on the inside edge and instead the pitch caught too much of the plate, though the lefty said he “didn’t hate where it ended up.”
“Put it in a spot where a really good hitter was able to hit the ball hard enough,” Fried said. “If I locate that in the area I want, I think the result’s probably a little bit better.”
Fried, who scattered six hits and two walks while striking out nine on a season-high 106 pitches, finished the day with a 1.89 ERA.
“I would say it’s a good club over there,” he said. “They’re putting together really good at-bats and seem to have a really good plan. They were able to get two runs and made me work all day. A lot of deep counts. It was definitely a good battle.”
Giancarlo Stanton spent Sunday at Yankee Stadium, with Angels pitchers loaded up on the Trajekt pitching machine to simulate the arms he will be facing this week when he comes off the injured list.
The Yankees expect to activate Stanton on either Monday or Tuesday to make his season debut after missing the first two and a half months of the season with tendinitis in both elbows.
The Yankees are 8-11 against the AL East and 34-16 against every other team
