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Umpire gives Yankees' Max Fried ridiculous Game 1 strike zone against Carlos Narvaez

Come on, Blue.
Adam Weinrib
Adam Weinrib

Yanks Go Yard

Wild Card Series - Boston Red Sox v New York Yankees - Game One / Al Bello/GettyImages

Pitching to the Boston Red Sox's righty-loaded lineup is tough enough for a lefty like Max Fried of the Yankees. It gets downright impossible when you lose the upper quadrant of the outside portion of the strike zone. Twice, in fact, it's disappeared entirely in key situations against patient Red Sox catcher Carlos Narvaez.

With two outs and nobody on in the fourth, Fried eventually found himself stretched to 24 pitches in the frame, inducing a clutch Jarren Duran strikeout after battling back from a 3-0 count with two runners on. Those runners took their bags in part because Fried wasn't given the outside corner against Narvaez, a battler if there's ever been one.

To be fair to home plate umpire Junior Valentine, Fried missed way off the plate with a breaker that might've thrown off his line of sight. To be not fair to him, the ball was plainly a strike.

To make matters worse, Narvaez worked a gritty, gutty, nine-pitch walk to make things especially sweaty in the sixth frame as Fried neared 100 pitches. The only reason he reached base? You guessed it: a somehow even worse call on the corner.

Yankees' Max Fried can't get calls on the outside corner of the strike zone from home plate umpire Junior Valentine in Game 1 vs. Red Sox

No, it's not umpire Brian Walsh. But, based on the strike zone equity, it might as well be.

Fried and ace lefty Garrett Crochet of the Red Sox have both been remarkable in this one, but Crochet has been far more effective at limiting base runners since the early innings. Partially due to his wonky strike zone, Fried has battled through rally after rally, escaping them by the skin of his teeth.

He got out of the sixth inning only because Amed Rosario was perfectly positioned up the middle to field a Nate Eaton looper and turn it into a double play. Unfortunately, it was too late for him to avoid the added pitches that came from the ump losing the corner, then finding it again with Crochet on the rubber.

Adam Weinrib

Adam Weinrib

Adam Weinrib is a Content Director on the FanSided network, and has been the co-editor at Yanks Go Yard for 6 years. He also co-hosts The Baseball Insiders Podcast thrice weekly, alongside FanSided MLB insider Robert Murray, as well as the Yanks Go Yard Podcast. Previously, he was a Senior Editor at 12up.com, and has been covering MLB and NFL for 10 years. He was also a headline and features contributor at ClickHole and Onion Sports, as well as the Associate Producer of the ESPN 30 for 30 film "Believeland". An avowed fan of the New York sports teams -- specifically the Yankees -- as well as the North Carolina Tar Heels, you can find Adam complaining mid-game on Twitter, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn if the game goes really poorly.