With Yankees' season on the line, Game 3 starter Max Fried ready to 'leave everything out on the field'

Peter Sblendorio, New York Daily News on Oct 6, 2026

Published in Baseball

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NEW YORK — Now more than ever, the Yankees have a need for Fried.

Suddenly on the brink of elimination, the Yankees turn to left-handed co-ace Max Fried to start Wednesday night’s ALDS Game 3 against the Tampa Bay Rays in the Bronx in hopes of extending their season.

It’s the kind of must-win game the Yankees envisioned giving Fried the ball for when they signed him to an eight-year, $218 million contract two offseasons ago.

“This is where you leave everything out on the field,” Fried, 32, said Tuesday. “There’s nothing else to save anything for. So for me, I understand that the leash is probably going to be pretty small, and we have to do whatever we can to win.”

The Yankees return home down 0-2 in the best-of-five playoff series after a pair of deflating losses in St. Petersburg, Fla., including a 5-2 defeat in Monday night’s Game 2 in which they committed four errors.

Their offense totaled only two runs — on a pair of Game 2 solo homers by Ben Rice — in the two games at Tropicana Field.

All of that puts a greater emphasis on Fried, who went 5-5 with a 2.80 ERA over 20 starts in the regular season, then tossed six innings of one-run ball in the Yankees’ Game 2 win over the Boston Red Sox in the wild-card series last week.

Fried’s partner is expecting a child any day now, but the left-hander confirmed Tuesday that he will “definitely” start Game 3, no matter what.

“I’ve got a really supportive family that understands that this is my job, and it’s not going to affect what happens,” Fried said.

Fried got the Game 3 nod over fellow left-hander Carlos Rodón (7-3, 2.67 ERA in 16 starts), who has not appeared in a game since Sept. 22, when he hurled eight shutout innings against the Rays in the Bronx.

Rodón would start Game 4 on Thursday night if the Yankees are able to extend the series.

“It really comes down to him and Carlos both. Two great options there,” pitching coach Matt Blake said of going with Fried in Game 3. “I think [it’s] just the way it lined up. We wanted to get Max involved in Game 3 and go from there. I wouldn’t say there was too much debate about it, other than Max has been one of our guys and we want to ride with him here.”

The Yankees are trying to become the 11th team in MLB history to overcome an 0-2 deficit in a best-of-five playoff series. No team has done it since 2017, when the Yankees won three in a row to rally back against Cleveland in the ALDS.

With Aaron Judge sidelined due to a calf strain, the Yankees’ biggest reason for optimism is their starting pitching, starting with Fried, who is 3-6 with a 5.03 ERA in 23 career playoff appearances (15 starts) but has delivered his share of marquee postseason moments.

Those include throwing six shutout innings in the clinching Game 6 of the 2021 World Series as a member of the Atlanta Braves.

“I expect him to give us a great chance to win,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Look, the first two games, and especially Game 2, were not pretty. It was not good enough, obviously. But we’ve got a chance to go win a baseball game [Wednesday] night, and I feel like Max gives us a great opportunity to do that.”

The Rays are set to counter with 36-year-old right-hander Nick Martinez, who was a first-time All-Star and finished 15-6 with a 3.10 ERA this season.

But Game 3’s biggest X-factor still figures to be how well Fried can neutralize a speedy, contact-oriented Rays lineup whose ability to put pressure on opposing defenses was on full display during the Yankees’ Game 2 nightmare.

“You have to flush it and not let it affect you,” Fried said of Game 2. “But at the same time, use it as motivation to stop it right there and prove that doesn’t define you, or that isn’t the character, and it was just kind of, like, a freak game. It’s important to have a little bit of pride and to be able to say, ‘That’s not us, and we’re going to prove it.’ ”

Working in Fried’s favor is that the Rays performed much worse against left-handed pitching (.248 average, .678 OPS) in the regular season than they did against right-handers (.263 average, .751 OPS).

That gives the Yankees some reason to dream that if Fried and Rodón can shut down the Rays in the Bronx, the series would go back to St. Petersburg for a winner-take-all Game 5, with American League Cy Young Award favorite Cam Schlittler ready to receive the ball.

But it starts with Wednesday — and with Fried — before the Yankees can think any further ahead.

“We still feel like whoever is going to be on that field and on the 26-man roster is good enough to be able to win that [given] day, and we have that same mentality,” Fried said.

“And I know that everyone [Wednesday] is going to have that same feeling, that we’re still a really great team and we expect to win.”