Daily Report – 5/13/26
Yankees
Disaster struck in Baltimore today as the Yankees lost to the Orioles 7-0, plus their best pitcher. After three innings, Max Fried exited the game with left elbow posterior soreness. The severity of Fried’s injury is unclear, and team physician Dr. Christopher Ahmad will examine the Yankees’ top southpaw.
The posterior is a component of the elbow’s ulnar collateral ligament (UCL). A torn UCL almost guarantees Tommy John surgery, which is season-ending. Anything else could mean Fried spends time on the injured list and potentially returns later this season, but the timeline is still significant.
Here are three reasons why Fried’s injury doesn’t extinguish the Yankees’ hopes for this season:
The Yankees have a deep rotation of successful starting pitchers, and Gerrit Cole is on his way back. He might not be his 2024 Cy Young self anymore, but he is still an excellent pitcher.
Fried holds a 5.31 career postseason ERA. He was excellent in last year’s Wild Card series, but disastrous in the ALDS against Toronto.
The Yankees’ offense is their biggest issue. Not their pitching. They are 3-9 in one-run games and 1-8 against winning teams.
Nevertheless, Fried is the Yankees’ ace. Regardless of how you look at it, losing him is problematic, and it feels like he and Cole are destined never to occupy the Yankees’ rotation simultaneously. Now, the conversations about which pitcher the Yankees remove in exchange for Cole will be put on hold.
“He was feeling a little something in between starts, not all that abnormal to what he deals with throughout the season,” Boone said of Fried. “You kind of go through your five and six-day [rest]. You kind of work through it, and you’re good to go. He threw his [bullpen] this week and felt good about that. So, just having a hard time getting to where he normally gets.”
Meanwhile, Fried, who delivered his postgame comments in a Cam Schlittler T-shirt, is not overly concerned about the severity of his injury. Again, an IL stint is highly likely, but perhaps his elbow injury will not end his season.
“I guess you never know, but I’m definitely planning on this thing being sooner rather than later,” Fried said. “Don’t want to put any timelines or anything like that. Obviously, we’ll find out tomorrow. Where everything is and the initial testing, I’m not too worried about a super long-term thing. If I can, I would love to be able to make my next start, but we’ll see.”
Fried’s optimism is encouraging, but nothing is definitive until he receives a diagnosis from Dr. Ahmad. Fried described his injury as hyper-extending or banging the back of his elbow. He explained that he experienced that “banging feeling” between starts earlier this season, including before today’s start. He described his elbow as “a little irritated” and “a little pissed off” today.
“Just a little uncomfortable, tight, especially between innings,” Fried said. “It’s hard for me to warm up, loosen up. First hitter of the inning would be, like, 88, 90, 91 [mph]. And by the end, fourth or fifth hitter, 20 pitches in, I’m able to kind of get things loosened up. But I just wasn’t sharp, and it was hard to keep bouncing back. I definitely wasn’t helping the team.”
The Yankees mustered one measly hit off the Orioles today, led by Kyle Bradish, who struck out five of seven batters with his 12-6 curveball. The mid-week-road-day-after-a-night-game bug plagued the Yankees. They won 6-2 yesterday but came up empty in every facet this afternoon, finishing their road trip with one win and five losses.
Across the Yankees’ five losses, they batted 4-for-35 with runners in scoring position. Today, they got slammed by a pitcher they dominated at the Stadium on May 2, part of their four-game sweep over Baltimore. That day, the Yankees scored five runs off Bradish, who got his revenge today.
“I think his heater was playing a little more, and then the breaking ball,” Boone said of Bradish. “I thought from the side, his curveball looked good. He was able to land it, some for strikes, and get the chase down. It looked like he was going forward for a long time and biting pretty good.”
Jazz Chisholm Jr., who is 4-for-24 (.167) in his last seven games, recorded the Yankees’ lone hit today. With one out in the fifth inning, he smoked a double to the right-field fence. Then, in his season debut, with runners at the corners, Anthony Volpe had a chance to tie the game. Despite working the count full, he struck out swinging on Bradish’s curveball.
Volpe endured an awful season debut. He went 0-for-3 at the plate and committed the Yankees’ first defensive error at shortstop since April 13. José Caballero aims to spend the minimum 10 days on the injured list, while Volpe hopes to craft a campaign to earn back his job as the Yankees’ starting shortstop.
“We’ve got to get some guys going,” Boone said. “We’ve got to get some guys on track. I thought Jazz had a couple of good swings today, which hopefully is encouraging, but we’ve just got to get some more guys going offensively. Overall, we’ve had a good offense, but we’ve got to get some more guys contributing regularly.”
The Yankees will have their hands full this weekend and next week. The Subway Series begins at Citi Field on Friday, and on Monday, the Yankees will kick off a seven-game homestand against two division opponents. They will start on Monday with a four-game ALDS rematch with the Toronto Blue Jays before a weekend series against the first-place Tampa Bay Rays.
Cover Image Courtesy: New York Yankees
