The Yankees are about to get a major piece back, and the timing could hardly be better.
Max Fried’s rehab assignment is set to begin Friday with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, putting the left-hander on the road back to the Bronx after he went down in May. He’ll take the mound for the first time since then against the Worcester Red Sox at PNC Field, and the Yankees are far more interested in how he comes out of it than what the box score looks like.
If Fried gets through the outing cleanly, the next checkpoint is how he recovers. From there, another rehab start in five days is the expected path, with a return to the big-league club possible by late July or early August.
That would be a welcome development for a Yankees rotation that has spent too much of the year waiting to be whole. Fried was supposed to join Gerrit Cole as the kind of top-end duo that can change the shape of a season.
Instead, the two have yet to be healthy at the same time. Now, at the midpoint of Fried’s second year in the Bronx, the Yankees finally have a chance to line them up together.
And there’s more coming behind them. Once Fried is back, the Yankees could roll out a rotation fronted by Fried, Cole and Cam Schlittler, the young arm who had a chance to start in the All-Star Game even though he didn’t take it. After a recent stretch filled with losing streaks, that kind of trio gives New York a real shot at stopping the bleeding.
The Yankees need the timing to work in their favor. By the time Fried is ready, they need to either be back on top of the American League East or at least close enough to first to keep the race alive. If they have a healthy rotation in place and still drift out of the hunt, there won’t be much of a defense for it.
This is the kind of pitching group the Yankees don’t get often. If Fried returns and the rest of the rotation holds, the message is simple: win the East or bust. That’s the lane they need to stay in as they push toward their most important goal, their 28th championship.
In Other News...
Yankees Suddenly Face Three Roster Calls They Cant Put Off
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One of those calls is in the bullpen, where Camilo Doval has slid so far down the hierarchy that a move may be coming sooner rather than later, especially with his options situation adding pressure. The position-player side has its own debate, too, with Jasson Domnguez and Jazz Chisholm Jr. both at the center of suggested adjustments as the Yankees look for a cleaner mix and a little more certainty in the lineup. [Read more 🡒]
Dodgers Just Pushed The Yankees Toward A Brutal Trade Deadline Choice
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The rotation picture is part of what makes the decision so tricky. With several starters on the way back from the injured list, the Yankees could soon find themselves with more arms than spots, creating a path to deal from a position of depth while trying to cover the holes left by the lineup's injuries. The challenge is finding the right balance between preserving what the Yankees already have and making enough of a splash to keep pace in a crowded race. [Read more 🡒]
Yankees Just Ran Into A Bigger Problem Than One Bad Series
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Cody Bellinger is one of the players expected to help steady things, but there is also a broader roster conversation hanging over the club as the trade deadline approaches. If the Yankees are going to keep pace, Brian Cashman may need to look beyond internal fixes and consider upgrades at catcher, along with other moves that could reshape the infield mix. The series in Los Angeles did not just cost them a chance at a cleaner result, it sharpened the question of whether this roster has enough reliable offense as currently built. [Read more 🡒]