Max Fried's first rehab outing is in the books. The Yankees' left-handed pitcher, who went on the 15-day injured list in mid-May due to a left elbow bone bruise, started his assignment Friday for New York's Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders against the Worcester Red Sox and went three innings.
He allowed two runs on five hits, one of which was a home run, while striking out three and throwing 52 pitches with 32 strikes.
"Most important -- was able to get all my pitches in and came out feeling good," Fried said. "So, when you come for a rehab and your first live-game action in a while, I think those are the most important things."
The first inning was a shaky one for Fried, who allowed three singles in the opening frame, starting with Nick Sogard's leadoff knock and soon followed by Andrew Knizner's two-out grounder up the middle that second baseman Marco Luciano did not corral and scored Sogard from third base.
"Just trying to get the feel of a game setting again," Fried said. "I have a lot of live BPs, so trying to throw the ball over the plate, not walk guys, force action -- and they were ready, ready to come out of the break."
Fried rebounded with a 1-2-3 second inning, including a leadoff strikeout of Allan Castro.
"Was looking at it -- 25 pitches after the first inning -- wanted to try to make it through three, hopefully four," Fried said. "But when you get put behind the eight ball like that, you just try to go out there, get a quick inning. It was nice to do that. I was able to get my three full innings, 50 pitches and, like I said, feeling good. So, that's the most important thing."
The southpaw, pitching with a 5-2 lead, started the third inning by retiring Sogard on a flyout until Nate Eaton's solo shot on a 2-1 pitch ended Fried's streak of consecutive outs at five batters.
"A slider -- a pitch I don't really throw a ton, but wanted to try a bunch of different things today and see how it works, and I guess that one didn't," Fried said.
Mickey Gasper subsequently singled on a groundball to shortstop George Lombard Jr. before Fried bounced back with back-to-back groundouts to end the frame and the outing overall.
Fried, last pitched May 13 in the Yankees' 7-0 loss at the Baltimore Orioles, topped out around 95 mph.
"First time back, being around there, throwing a good amount of fastballs, having good command, yeah -- like I said, the most important thing was being able to hit my pitch limit and then come out feeling good," Fried said.
What is next for Fried?
"That's going to be the team's call," Fried said. "I'll just go wherever they want me to for the next one and, yeah, it's more about whatever the team needs -- if they want me to come and keep building up and have another outing, then great. And whenever they feel like I'm ready to go to help the team, I'll be there."
Through 10 games for New York this season, Fried is 4-3 with a 3.21 ERA and 1.01 WHIP in 61.2 IP.
"As a competitor, it sucks because I wish that I was out there," Fried said. "But obviously I wasn't able to -- I wasn't able to stay healthy enough to go out there and help the guys out. But we're a confident group. You're not going to play your best baseball the whole year, all 162. It's been not as consistent as we've wanted it to, but I think we're pretty motivated coming out of the break to play some of our best baseball and especially when it matters most."
As a first-year Yankee during the 2025 campaign, Fried went 19-5 with a 2.86 ERA in 32 starts.
