Max Fried has had a tough go of it in the second half of the 2025 MLB season. 

After a Cy Young-caliber start to his Yankees tenure, the southpaw has been atrocious over the past month and a half. 

Fried has a 6.80 ERA over his last eight starts, which is the sixth-highest in baseball among pitchers with at least 30 innings pitched over that stretch. 

In his last time out, he had the worst outing of his short Pinstripes career, allowing seven earned runs on eight hits with two homers over five innings against the Cardinals. 

What’s troubling is that there’s no one thing that appears to be plaguing Fried – he’s been a much worse pitcher all around. 

Over this recent stretch, Fried’s strikeouts are only slightly down, but his walks, homers and hits allowed are way up. 

Batters have a 37.5 percent hard-hit rate against Fried since July 1, which would be the highest rate since his first full season in the big leagues in 2019. 

That has led to a ton of hits (10.76 per nine innings) and long balls (1.32 per nine innings), both of which would be career-highs. 

Fried may have been able to escape this rough stretch if he could avoid free passes, but he hasn’t even been able to do that, allowing 3.51 per nine innings, which would be the ninth-highest among qualified pitchers this year. 

Something ain’t right with Fried. 

I don’t think Friday night is the night to figure it out against the bitter rival Red Sox, who just scored six runs in Friday night’s victory.

The play: Max Fried to allow 3+ earned runs (+140, DraftKings)

Dylan Svoboda is a versatile writer and analyst across many sports. He’s particularly knowledgeable about the big three — MLB, the NFL and the NBA.