Atlanta Braves: Max Fried Dominant in 2-1 Win Over Rays

The Atlanta Braves looked to push their record over the .500 mark on Thursday evening against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Fans were treated to a pitching duel on Thursday evening as the Atlanta Braves looked to split the home-and-home series with the Rays.

Atlanta’s southpaw Max Fried faced off with Tampa Bay lefty Ryan Yarbrough Thursday in Atlanta.

It was a true pitching duel as offensive production was tough to come by in the early innings.

Max Fried started off by sitting down the first 14 batters he faced and held the Rays scoreless through 6.2 innings of work.

The young lefty allowed just 1 run on 3 hits while also striking out 7 batters during Thursday’s game. Oh, did I mention he only threw 38 pitches through the first 4 innings of work, picked off the first baserunner he allowed and hit 99 mph on the radar gun?

Fried has matched Mike Soroka pitch for pitch in his first two starts. The two of them have combined to allow just 5 earned runs across 23 combined innings.

Max almost made it out of the 7th inning before allowing Willy Adames to hit a double down the third baseline which led manager Brian Snitker to go to his bullpen to finish out the game.

Luke Jackson allowed the lone Rays run to score as Ji-Man Choi notched an RBI single with 2 outs in the 7th inning. Jackson got out of a jam and recorded the first two outs of the 8th inning before giving way to Shane Greene to record the final out with just one pitch.

Mark Melancon came in for the save and sealed the win for Atlanta in what was a great series. Well, he may have also been assisted by an incredible catch by left fielder Adam Duvall as well.

The Atlanta Braves offense was able to produce 2 hits and scored 2 runs off of Rays starter Yarbrough and that was luckily just enough to take home the W.

Marcell Ozuna and Dansby Swanson singled in the second inning to account for the only hits allowed by Yarbrough allowed across 6.2 innings.

Swanson continued to stay hot at the plate with an opposite-field single that scored Ozuna and advanced Adam Duvall (who was hit by a pitch) to third and Duvall eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Austin Riley.

This was a fun game to watch and I was very encouraged by what I saw from Max Fried. As I said during our fantasy draft podcast, Max is certainly my sleeper pick to win the NL Cy Young.

He has all the right tools to make it happen and I like what I saw tonight. He had command of every pitch and his body language on the mound was fierce. He challenged every Rays hitter he faced and looked like a man on a mission.

Not much offense to be found here but just enough to bring the Braves season record to 4-3 as they prepare to welcome the New York Mets to town for hopefully another exciting series.

Sean Newcomb takes the mound hoping to rebound from yet another tough outing. We need Newk to return to the form he possessed during his bullpen stint for the Braves.

I hope tonight’s performance from Max Fried was just the motivation he needed.