Yankees crush Rockies 13-1 behind 10-run inning, Fried shines again

New York—The Yankees dominated the Rockies 13-1 thanks to a 10-run fifth inning. Max Fried got the start for the Yankees, and Kyle Freeland took the ball for the Rockies.

Paul Goldschmidt wasted no time sending a line drive single to left field on the first pitch of the game. Goldy was erased on a double play from Trent Grisham, then Aaron Judge got the scoring started with a 405-foot bomb to right field, his 18th of the year, to make it 1-0 Yankees. 

Fried picked off a runner to work around a leadoff single as he faced the minimum in the bottom of the first inning and picked up his first strikeout of the game.

Fried retired the Rockies order in the bottom of the second and picked up his second strikeout of the game. 

In the bottom of the fourth inning, Fried gave up a leadoff single, then quickly erased that runner with his second pickoff in three innings. 

Fried talked about when and how he got so good at picking off base runners. 

“High school,” Fried said. “Just being able to read runners, it was just more of trying it a lot in high school, and a lot of trial and error. I've been able to kind of fine-tune it and make it a lot better in pro ball.”

Michael Toglia tied this game up at 1-1 in the bottom of the fourth inning with a two-out RBI triple. 

The Yankees quickly responded. In the top of the fifth inning, Austin Wells led things off with a single to right field. Then, Oswald Peraza delivered an RBI double to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead. Then Goldy worked a walk, and Trent Grisham followed that up with a chopper back to the mound that Freeland threw away to allow another run to score and make it a 3-1 game. Aaron Judge was then intentionally walked to load the bases, Cody Bellinger followed that up with a sac fly to make it 4-1. Anthony Volpe then came through with an RBI single to make it a 5-1 game. 

The next batter, Jasson Dominguez, made it a 6-1 game with a sac fly. DJ LeMahieu then lined a single to right field to knock Freeland out of the game. A wild pitch allowed two runners to move into scoring position. Wells then picked up a two-run double, his second hit of the inning, to make it 8-1. Goldy came through with his third knock of the game, a RBI single to make it a 9-1 game. Grisham drove in two more with a two-run double to make it 11-1. With that Grisham double every Yankee in the lineup has a hit, to cap off a 10-run top of the fifth inning. 

“Yeah, it's awesome,” Wells said on having an offense that has the ability to score 10 runs in an inning. “Every single guy was on base almost every inning, so that was really fun. Just to see what the guys are able to do against good pitching, that was really cool.”

Fried faced the minimum in the bottom of the sixth with the help of a 6-4-3 double play, as his pitch count was just 61 through six innings. 

In the bottom of the seventh inning, Fried worked around a leadoff single and picked up his sixth strikeout of the game to work a scoreless frame. 

Beli led off the top of the eighth inning with a triple in the right-center gap. Volpe followed that up with an RBI double down the third base line to make it a 12-1 game, Volpe's third hit of the game. A couple batters later, DJ picked up an RBI single to make it 13-1, his third hit of the game. 

Fried picked up a strikeout for the first out of the bottom of the eighth. Ian Hamilton then replaced Fried on the mound. Hamilton gave up two singles and picked up two strikeouts to finish off the eighth. 

Max Fried's final line: 7.1 innings pitched, six hits allowed, one earned run, one walk, and seven strikeouts on just 83 pitches. Fried threw his football 57% of the time, the curveball 22%, the sinker 12%, the sweeper 5%, the changeup 4%, and the cutter 1% of the time. Fried was dominant yet again as he probably could have finished this game off if Aaron Boone had let him, but there was no point in pushing him up 12 runs. Fried’s ERA is now 1.29 on the season. 

“Yeah, I tried,” Fried said, on pleading his case to Boone about staying in the game. “He made some good points that there were some long innings, pitching changes, and things like that. We have a long season, so I’m not trying to get to narrow focused on today at that point; I understood the reasoning and respected it.”

Ian Hamilton remained in the game for the bottom of the ninth and worked a 1-2-3 inning to give the Yankees a 13-1 victory. 

The Yankees will look to win the series tomorrow with Will Warren on the mound, facing off against Antonio Senzatela for the Rockies. The first pitch will be at 3:10 p.m. ET on the YES Network. 

My thoughts on the game: great bounce-back win after a frustrating game yesterday. Another great start from Fried as he could have probably fished that game off if Boone let him, he was rolling. Everyone showed up offensively, three hits from Volpe, Beli, Goldy, and DJ, as the Yankees had 13 runs and 21 hits combined. Plus another home run from Judge to take the MLB lead with 18 bombs on the year. Dominguez was also awesome from the right side of the plate today, picking up two hits and a sac fly from the right side.  Hamilton also looked solid out of the bullpen to finish off the ballgame. On to tomorrow, as the Yankees have a great chance to win the series with Warren on the mound