Braves Take Series Opener Versus Royals Thanks to Max Fried's Brillance

The Atlanta Braves watched their pending free agent lefty push a shutout bid into the 9th inning

The Atlanta Braves dominated the Kansas City Royals 3-0 behind a dominant Max Fried start in Truist Park on Friday night. 

Here’s what you need to know about from the contest.

We got Maximum Fried tonight

Fried was on one tonight - he was both absurdly efficient in his innings and still picked up plenty of strikeouts, punching nine tickets in his near-complete game.

I speculated on twitter prior to the game that Fried might go with a soft contact strategy, using his sinker, cutter, and curveball to induce weak contact from a Royals lineup that didn’t whiff a lot entering the game tonight.

I was half right - Fried threw his sinker over 20% of the time, pairing it with the sweeper to frustrate Kansas City batters with five (of nine total) whiffs on the pairing. He didn’t really lean on his vaunted curveball, throwing it just 17% of the time, but it was complete domination for the lefty.

Fried discussed the emotions of the game, telling Bally Sports’ Hanna Yates on the field immediately after that he “wanted to leave everything out there and try to win” in what could be his last start of the season. He elaborated on those thoughts in the postgame media availability, saying “I’d be lying if it didn’t cross my mind” about it possibly being his final start in a Braves uniform and admitting that he was a bit emotional when walking off the field in the 9th inning.

Other fun note: Max Fried’s pickoff of Michael Massey at first base in the top of the 4th was his MLB-leading 27th pickoff since 2017. Fried was previously tied with Washington Nationals starter Patrick Corbin at 26, although Fried accomplished it in 213 attempts as compared to Corbin’s 518.

Unlikely sources of offense

The Braves offense was absurdly hot down the stretch, with Michael Harris II and Matt Olson absolutely raking over the last month. The duo combined to bat .335 with 12 homers in the month of September entering tonight’s matchup.

So naturally, they combined to go 0-6 in this one and the offense came from other places.

Sean Murphy, mired in a 3-38 slump in September, launched a hanging Brady Singer sweeper to the Royals bullpen in the 4th inning, driving in Ramón Laureano and giving Atlanta their first two runs of the game.

The Braves didn’t add to that total until the 8th inning, when noted speedster Marcell Ozuna stole third base and caused Royals catcher Salvador Perez to throw the ball into left field. It was The Big Bear’s first stolen base attempt since May 22nd, 2022 and his first successful stolen base since May 15th, a 388-game span.

Something something speed never slumps.

Fried saved the bullpen

Facing the possibility of five games in four days and then potentially heading directly into a Wild Card matchup on Tuesday, the entire pitching staff has been asked to be ready to throw a lot in the next week.

But for one game, they mostly got the night off.

Joe Jiménez started tossing to open the 8th inning, while Raisel Iglesias did the same for the 9th. The idea there was to throw concurrently with Fried, being ready to step in if the lefty got into any sort of trouble.

Iglesias finally got that call after Fried allowed two to reach in the 9th, both with two outs - Bobby Witt Jr. walked and Michael Massey immediately doubled (his second of the game) on the very next pitch.

But even with Iglesias having to come into the game, he’s not down for tomorrow: He threw exactly one competitive pitch, getting Salvador Perez to fly out after swinging under an elevated slider to open the at-bat.

The Braves completed the game in just under two hours, with the contest coming in at 1:59, and took just 99 pitches to do it.

Scoreboard watching across the league

The results across the league look to be helping Atlanta here. The Detroit Tigers, tied with the Kansas City Royals in the AL Wild Card entering today, took down the Chicago White Sox to punch their ticket to October. As of press time, the Baltimore Orioles were up 3-0 over the Minnesota Twins in the top of the 8th inning - a Twins loss would clinch the other AL Wild Card spot for Kansas City, undoubtedly altering their pitching plans for the final two games of the series as they look to set up their rotation for next week’s Wild Card matchup.

What’s next for the Atlanta Braves?

The Braves will be activating Reynaldo López (8-5, 2.03) off the injured list for tomorrow’s start, with Kansas City undoubtedly changing from scheduled starter Seth Lugo (16-9, 3.03) to either a spot starter or a bullpen game - they’ll want both Lugo and scheduled Sunday starter Cole Ragans to get the first two playoff games next Tuesday and Wednesday.

First pitch from Truist Park is scheduled for 7:20 PM ET.