Max Fried hitting historic stride has Yankees fans dreaming of playoff run

New York Yankees starting pitcher Max Fried was sensational on Thursday night against the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards. Is the left-hander returning to his All-Star form just in time for the playoffs? Although Fried’s 18-5 record might not show it, 2025 has been something of a rollercoaster ride for the ace. Things reached a sad low in August, when Fried’s collection of consecutive bad outings had fans wondering if the Yankees should regret signing him.

There were no such concerns about Fried on Thursday. The 31-year-old pitched seven innings of near-perfect baseball, allowing zero earned runs, three hits, and just one walk. Oh, and he struck out 13 Orioles.

Per Stathead’s Katie Sharp, Fried entered rare record-book territory with the performance.

Is this the version of Fried that New York will be getting in the postseason?

Max Fried might be reactivating ace mode at just the right time for the Yankees

Fried’s struggles in July (5.54 ERA) and August (5.14 ERA) made Yankees fans feel like his favorable start to the season in a Yankees uniform was but a fluke. That same fan base knew all too well that, if Fried wasn’t going to be reliable, the Yankees’ contention hopes were basically in the garbage. Were his blisters still affecting him? If not, the inverse was even more worrisome; if there wasn't a root cause, had he just lost it?

As such, hopes and dreams for a return to the World Series were buried by many fans in recent weeks, replaced by a more realistic approach to the Yankees that guarded against massive disappointment.

It’s not that Fried’s overall body of work in 2025 has been bad, as his career-high 174 strikeouts indicate. It’s that Fried seemed to be getting worse as the season wore on, which made New York’s starting rotation look doomed.

But given Fried’s talent level and history of success, all Yankees fans needed to see were a few bounce-back starts in which Fried looked like a Cy Young candidate again, and that certainly happened on Thursday night. In fact, Fried has looked much stronger over his last handful of outings.

There’s no guarantee that Fried will be able to replicate any semblance of Thursday’s effort in successive starts, but the Yankees sure are hoping that they’ll get the best version of Fried in October.

Perhaps things are indeed coming together for the Yankees at just the right time. The team has some momentum, and there’s an opportunity to gather even more over the next 10 days.

New York has won three in a row and entered Friday with a two-game cushion atop the American League Wild Card standings. Don’t completely rule out New York in the AL East, either, as the Yankees were only three games back of the Toronto Blue Jays entering Friday (though the Jays do have the tiebreaker).

New York also has a favorable schedule the rest of the way. After three more games in Baltimore this weekend, the Yankees will return home to the Bronx for their final six games of the season — a three-game set against the Chicago White Sox, followed by a three-game set against the Orioles.

Will Warren was set to take the mound on Friday night at Camden Yards. Now, it's time for him to take the baton from Fried and continue taking care of business.