Max Fried allowed one hit in six sharp innings to become the fourth eight-game winner in the major leagues as the New York Yankees recorded a 4-0 victory over the visiting Cleveland Guardians on Thursday.
Cody Bellinger hit a two-run homer in the fourth off Cleveland’s Slade Cecconi as the Yankees took the decisive game of a three-game series. New York won a series for the eighth time in nine tries and bounced back from getting blanked for the second this season on Wednesday.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. (three hits) and Bellinger added RBI singles in the seventh inning as the Yankees won for the 19th time in 26 games.
Fried (8-1) allowed only an infield single to Jose Ramirez in the first inning and two walks. After walking David Fry in the first, the left-hander retired 11 straight and 15 of the final 16 hitters he faced.
Fried struck out seven while rebounding nicely from his first loss and worst start as a Yankee when he was tagged for six runs and eight hits in five-plus innings in a road game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 30.
Fried joined teammate Carlos Rodon, the Houston Astros’ Hunter Brown and the San Francisco Giants’ Robbie Ray as the only eight-game winners in the big leagues. The New York ace produced his fourth scoreless start of the season.
The Yankees were held hitless until the fourth inning, when Aaron Judge delivered a one-out double down the right field line. On the next pitch, Bellinger hit a fastball into the New York bullpen beyond the right-center-field fence for his ninth homer.
Ramirez had Cleveland’s first two hits to extend his on-base streak to 31 games, one shy of the career high set during the 2018 season. Carlos Santana singled in the seventh off Mark Leiter Jr. to extend his hitting streak to 14 games.
New York’s Tim Hill escaped a bases-loaded jam in the seventh before Bellinger and Chisholm drove in the next two runs in the bottom of the inning.
Cecconi (1-2) allowed two runs on five hits in five innings. He struck out three and walked two.
–Field Level Media
