MINNEAPOLIS — The champagne had barely dried when the Yankees faced the question left from the night before: Would a team that partied into the early hours show up flat?
They did not.
Cody Bellinger hit a two-run homer in the first inning, the Yankees finished with 14 hits, every starter had at least one, and New York never trailed in an 8-1 win over the Twins at Target Field on Tuesday.
But the number that mattered most for the Yankees’ October was Max Fried’s pitch count.
One start after laboring through 3 1/3 innings against Colorado, Fried went seven on 88 pitches, allowing one run on six hits with six strikeouts and no walks. It was his longest outing since April 22 and first win since April 27. In Colorado, the Yankees pitcher needed 80 pitches for 10 outs. Tuesday, he needed only eight more for 21.
Fried said one small adjustment to his offspeed command changed everything.
How the Yankees put it away early
After being held to two hits by Dean Kremer, the Yankees jumped Bailey Ober. Ben Rice, after nearly being hit, led off with a single. Bellinger followed with his 16th homer to right-center.
Bellinger went 3-for-4 with a walk and is hitting .377 over his last 17 games with five homers since returning from a hamstring injury. The Yankees slugger average rose to .272, its highest since June 22.
Anthony Volpe and Ali Sanchez singled back-to-back in the second, but Ober stranded both. Minnesota answered when Royce Lewis reached on an infield single, stole second, and scored on Emmanuel Rodriguez’s two-out RBI single. Fried ended it with a textbook pickoff of Rodriguez.
The Yankees answered in the third. Heliot Ramos walked, Luis Garcia Jr. singled, and George Lombard Jr. poked a two-out RBI single through the right side for a 3-1 lead. Volpe walked to load the bases, but Sanchez’s drive to center died on the warning track.
Ober scattered nine hits over 5 1/3 innings and allowed three runs as New York repeatedly stranded runners. That changed in the sixth.
Rice reached on shortstop Kaelen Culpepper’s error, Bellinger drew a four-pitch walk, and Ramos doubled off left-hander Taylor Rogers for a 4-1 lead.
Spencer Jones followed. After fouling off a series of hanging sweepers, the Yankees rookie hitter got a fourth one over the middle on a 2-2 count and drove it 423 feet to center for a three-run homer and 7-1 lead.
Rogers had not allowed a homer to a left-handed hitter all season across 133 plate appearances. Jones ended that streak. He is now slashing .435/.490/.761 against southpaws and became the 11th Yankee with double-digit homers this season, matching the club’s 2019 total.
All four sixth-inning runs were unearned because of Culpepper’s error.
New York added one in the ninth when Lombard walked, advanced on a groundout, and scored on Jose Caballero’s single off Andrew Morris.
Every Yankees starter recorded at least one hit and reached base. Ramos, Lombard, and Volpe each reached base three times. The win made New York 88-63, with seven victories in eight games and a six-game lead over Boston for the top AL wild card.
The adjustment Fried made between starts
Fried said better command of his offspeed pitches allowed him to use them in any count.
“Just had better control of my offspeed pitches. Being able to throw them for strikes. Feel like I was able to throw ’em in any count. And was really, really confident in that. Worked really well with Ali (Sanchez), and also, when you have defense make some great plays behind you, it adds to your confidence,” the Yankees ace told Meredith Marakovits of the YES Network.
It was Fried’s ninth start since returning from a second injured-list stint for a bone bruise in his left elbow. The Yankees’ goal was to reduce pitches per inning and work deeper.
“It definitely was nice to be able to put what felt like a full start together, not as much limited by pitch count,” Fried said. “Still got up to 88 pitches and finished the seventh, so definitely nice to kind of check that box. But it’s a mix of feeling good with where we’re at but also knowing that we still have stuff to work on.”
Yankees skipper Aaron Boone suggested Fried could build further next time.
“I like where he’s at after that, and hopefully maybe build him a little more in the next one and hopefully more of the same,” Boone said. “But loved how he attacked the strike zone, controlled counts and really had a presence with most of his stuff tonight.”
Why the timing matters for October
Fried’s health and workload are central to the Yankees’ postseason mathhttps://pinstripesnation.com/mlb-2026-postseason-schedule-yankees-2026-08-11/. He carried a 2.63 ERA after Tuesday and owns a 1.83 ERA with 50 strikeouts over 44 1/3 innings in nine starts since the All-Star break.
The pitch data agreed. According to a Pitch Profiler chart, Fried threw his sweeper 19 times, 21.6 percent of his 88 pitches. Hitters whiffed on it 70 percent of the time and produced a .098 expected weighted on-base average.
His curveball, thrown 15 times, produced a 33.3 percent whiff rate. The Yankees ace’s changeup, thrown 13 times, generated a 37.5 percent whiff rate and a .175 expected mark.
Those three offspeed pitches accounted for 47 of his 88 pitches, more than half his workload. That trust in his secondary stuff helped produce a 32.6 percent overall whiff rate with no walks. The Yankees star’s four-seamer and sinker produced his weakest results, and he used them least.
A bigger test comes next.
Fried is lined up to face the Rays next week in one game of a doubleheader opening a pivotal four-game series at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees remain 3 1/2 games behind 91-59 Tampa Bay in the AL East with 11 to play.
“It’s going to be playoff baseball,” Fried said. “It’s two teams, two really good teams, that are going at it. I’m just excited to be a part of it, and I can’t wait for next week.”
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