Fried 'Em And Weep

 

So, uh...guess who's 7-1 and holding onto the best record in baseball?

Let me get ahead of any attempts to delegitimize this, because you know people will try. The Yankees began the season playing the Giants, who have since taken games from the Padres and Mets, meaning they can contend with great teams. The Yankees then took two from the Mariners, themselves a very good team who aim to compete this year. And they're looking to sweep the Marlins, who, regardless of their very strong first week or so, are starting their worst starter, Chris Paddack, today. None of these have been gimmes, and many of these have been without great strides from Aaron Judge or Jazz Chisholm. 

The team is just good right now. Last night, they managed to battle back TWICE against a very crafty Marlins team, and got themselves out of trouble on multiple occasions. The lineup has enough clutch ability to stay in it, and Giancarlo Stanton, Ben Rice, Cody Bellinger and Trent Grisham were all on hand to keep the game close and refuse an upset by the Marlins, who themselves were really fighting for it. Also, crucially, last night Ryan Weathers gave the team a rare okay starting performance, allowing 3 earned runs and 6 hits in 3.2 innings. And let's just check, for comparison's sake, how many runs Paddack gave up in his first start-OH THAT'S RIGHT, EIGHT! And two home runs! You know who's given up two runs? Will Warren. And he's the only Yankee so far to have given up any home runs. And...knowing Will Warren, that kinda tracks honestly. He does two things, he strikes people out and he gives up home runs. 

Max Fried is starting today, and so far he's been just about flawless. 2 starts, 5 hits, 2 walks, no earned runs. Guy's got a 0.9 WAR in early April. We signed this guy to be a solid high-to-mid rotation option, just get up and do the job for 32 starts, and he's exceeded even those expectations. At some point this season, we're gonna get Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon back, and possibly even Clarke Schmidt. And the fact that even before those contingency plans get here, a skeleton crew of Fried, Cam Schlittler and Will Warren has been near-flawless against some good teams...that is a good sign. I'm not saying we don't still need Cole and Rodon, but it makes any trepidation towards a period without them seem shortsighted in hindsight. 

Now, there are still issues, because of course there are. Some sloppy fielding, as one would expect. Ryan McMahon hasn't started hitting at all. Randal Grichuk's promotion seems to have been a mistake, and with both Dominguez and Jones on the 40-man it just seems like a way of leveraging service time. Camilo Doval and David Bednar need to get over their current yips, as the highs are very high but the runs are beginning to pile up. At some point Luis Gil is gonna need to swing in, and eventually something will need to be done with Weathers if he doesn't even out, or possibly even if he does. 

The A's should be relatively simple, but the Rays always know our number. I hope they can stay strong amidst this stretch, and keep this momentum going all year. Cause, again, the people we knew we'd be without haven't even gotten here yet and the team's still this good. Very promising.

Coming Tomorrow- One would have thought the Braves would have a Marcell Ozuna-shaped hole in their RBI numbers this year, and thanks to this guy....not really.