The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
» First inning costly to Fried, but he battled back,
A few hours before Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, Tyler Matzek summed up the Braves’ confifidence in their starting pitcher, Max Fried.
“The man has been lightsout all year,” said Matzek, a key member of the Braves’ bullpen. “I expect himto continue doing what he has been doing.”
Among the things Fried had been doing all season was keeping the ball in the park. He allowed only two home runs in the 56 innings he pitched during the regular season.
So itwas an unexpected early blow to the Braves’ chances of ending the NLCS on Saturday when the Los Angeles Dodgers hit two home runs offff Fried in the fifirst inning.
A towering fly ball on a hanging curveball to the Dodgers’ second batter of the game, Corey Seager, landed beyond the right fieldwall. Twopitcheslater, Justin Turner turned a 93 mph sinker into a 418-foot homer to center.
After Turner’s homer, Fried walked the next batter, Max Muncy, and surrendered a single toWillSmith, puttingrunners on fifirst and third bases with one out. A single by Cody Bellinger scored Muncy to give the Dodgers a 3-0 lead. The Braves had a reliever, Jacob Webb, warming up in the bullpen.
Fried impressive ly fought back and wound up staying in the game until the seventh inning, holding the Dodgers scoreless after the first. But the three first-inning runs were the difference as the Dodgers won the game 3-1 to even the bestof-seven series 3-3 and set up Game 7 today.
Fried, theBraves’ undisputed No. 1 starter, had hoped to pitch his team into the World Series on Saturday, of course.
“Anytime you get the opportunity to go out there and try to get the chance to go to the
World Series, you want to take it,” Fried said late Friday night.
Though the Braves couldn’t overcome the early 3-0 defificit Saturday, Fried kept them in the game into the late innings. No one would have guessed in the first inning that he would last longer than the Dodgers’ starter, WalkerBuehler. But that is what happened.
Fried pitched 6⅔ innings, allowed eight hits, walked four, struck out five and kept the Braves from having to overtax their bullpen on the eve of Game 7.
Fried pitched around base runner sin every inning from the second through the seventh. Mookie Betts singled with one out in the second butwas stranded at fifirst base. Muncyhada leadoffffsingle in the third but didn’t advance. The Dodgers had runners on fi first and second with one out in the fourth but didn’t score. A twooutwalk in the fififth led to nothing. Aone-out single in the sixth was erasedwitha double play. A one-out walk to Turner in the seventhwas stranded, with Darren O’Day getting thefifinalout of that inning after Fried had reached a career-high 109 pitches.
Losing aFriedstart isunfamiliar to theBraves. Entering Saturday, they were 13-1 this season in games started by the 26-yearold left-hander (10-1 in the regular season and 3-0 in the postseason).
The opening-inning diffifficulty wasn’t altogether uncharacteristic. Fried had a 4.91 ERA in the fifirst inning during the regular season and a 1.60 ERAafter the fifirst.
But Fried hadn’t allowed a home run all season — and had a 68⅓-inning homer-less streak dating to last season — until a Sept. 23 gameagainst theMiami Marlins. He allowed back- toback homers in the fifirst inning of that game, too, but there was an extenuating circumstance: Those were hit by the next two batters after Fried injured his left ankle fifielding a bunt.