Word comes from Florida that Max Fried, the reigning ace of the Yankees' pitching staff—well, right now, about the entirety of the Yankees' pitching staff—is still upset over his awful start against the Blue Jays in the playoffs last year, and is using it to "motivate" himself this season.
Uh-huh.
Here is where today's athletes separate themselves from the rest of us. We mere mortals might have assumed that the $31.5 million a year that Mr. Fried makes would have been motivation enough, but no siree. Fried will be hell-bent on avenging that disastrous, embarrassing outing, when he surrendered 7 earned runs in less than 4 innings and essentially ended the Yanks' postseason hopes.
Well, Maxxie must have been motivating like crazy throughout his career, because he has generally been an enormous flop in October, going a lifetime 2-6 in 14 playoff starts and 22 appearances, along with a blown save, and an ERA of 5.31.
Motivation, schmotivation. With everything on the line, Max resembles nothing so much as that team of walking—well, falling—nervous breakdowns now representing us at the Olympics.
One great U.S. athlete after another, invariably described as "the greatest ever," "completely invincible," "best in the world," and "boffo, baby, boffo!" (all right, I made that last one up), has not merely lost, but usually fallen flat on their faces.
The most prominent, of course, has been "the Quad God"—real name, Ilya Kuryakin—but it's been about the same for such Olympic can't-misses as Chloe Kim, Lindsey Vonn, and Mikaela Schiffrin, leaving one gold after another lying in the ice, snow, or what have you.
American athletes, in fact, have been falling down or choking up in such profusion that one wonders if they have not secretly signed up to advertise some medical service or emergency room, once these Olympics finally end.
"Under pressure? Hey, I hear ya. Come see our trusted psychological professionals before you find yourself picking the ice chips out of your teeth.!"
I kid, I kid. But boy, it's just too painful to watch anymore—for the psychic toll, even more than the physical.
So it will be with our Maxxie, I fear.
Yes, the man has had some occasional, postseason successes. He is most renowned, perhaps, for pitching six shutout innings in the Braves' 7-0 romp over Houston to clinch the 2021 World Series—something law-abiding baseball fans everywhere could admire.
And his first, October start for your New York Yankees consisted of 6 1/3 innings against the BoSox last year...in a game we eventually lost.
But that's about it.
The only time that Max Fried, ace of our staff, has got through the seventh inning in a playoff game, was 7 shutout innings against Cincinnati, in an NLDS game...back in 2020. Which should tell us something.
Now 32, Fried has proved a delicate soul on the mound, never pitching as many as 200 innings in a season. He tends to weaken as the season goes on—as he did for us last year, his ERA rising from a spectacular, 1.92 to 3.26, from June 25th to August 16th.
He then seemed to right himself, finishing strong...before his October flop.
Hey, I don't say this is any personal failing. The man has been taught to pitch this way, no doubt by any number of the nattering nabobs now left in charge of major-league pitching staffs. You leave it all out there for six innings, throw as hard as you can, miss bats...and then a first-class bullpen picks you up.
Except...our wonderful GM forgot to provide us with any such thing this year. Or even really much of one last year. Had Max Fried been signed to play on, say, those 1998-2000 Yankees teams with maybe the best all-around bullpen ever assembled, he would be lights out.
Now—as our designated ace—with no one behind him and no one in the pen, the pressure for him to go long, consistently, is going to be unbearable. Look for another slump or even a breakdown, as October comes early.
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