Max Fried's no-hit bid ended by official scorer's change in Yankees' shutout of Rays
Yankees starting pitcher Max Fried throws to home plate during the first inning of a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Sunday, April, 20, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. Credit: AP/Phelan M. Ebenhack
TAMPA, Fla. — Well, that was something.
The whole afternoon, in fact.
Max Fried held the Rays hitless for seven innings at Steinbrenner Field on Sunday afternoon, but as the lefthander warmed up before the bottom of the eighth, official scorer Bill Mathews retroactively awarded a hit to Chandler Simpson, who reached first with one out in the sixth on a hard one-hopper that first baseman Paul Goldschmidt failed to handle.
Mathews, who has been scoring Rays games at Tropicana Field for nearly two decades, announced that after viewing several replays, it was “very apparent” that Simpson would have beaten either Goldschmidt or Fried to the bag.
In real time, that was very apparent to pretty much everyone. The final verdict was hard to argue with, given that Simpson, a prospect called up Friday, stole 104 bases in Triple-A last season.
Coincidentally or not, Jake Mangum led off the eighth by stroking a line-drive single to center, to a degree making the scoring change a moot point.
Fried wound up departing after allowing two hits and two walks in 7 2/3 innings, a brilliant performance in the Yankees’ 4-0 victory at their spring training home, where they ended up taking three of four.
No one in the Yankees' clubhouse made a big deal of the scoring change afterward, starting with Fried and including manager Aaron Boone, who had been ejected for the first time this season in the top of the eighth.
“Look, we’re not going to beat him [Simpson] to the bag, so I get it,” Boone said. “It makes it a little bit dicey when it’s [two innings later], but the reality is, it was a hit.”
Fried said he wasn’t aware that the Simpson play ultimately was scored a hit until after he was taken out, but he didn’t think much of it.
“It is what it is,” he said. “I’m just happy we got the win . . . He’s obviously extremely fast. I just know he was on first base. It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s a hit or an error.”
Fried’s efforts, which helped him improve to 4-0 with a 1.42 ERA, highlighted what overall was a bizarre afternoon.
Boone, who led or was tied for the American League lead in ejections the previous four seasons, was run by plate umpire Adam Beck after disputing a called third strike on Aaron Judge leading off the top of the eighth. But the subject of Boone’s ire really was third-base umpire Scott Barry, who had called Judge's apparent home run to leftfield a foul ball one pitch earlier,
Boone and his dugout were sure the drive, which left the stadium by a mile and sailed well over the foul pole, was fair. The Yankees challenged the call and it was upheld.
“The audacity of the call standing is remarkable,” said Boone, who visited the Yankees' video room moments before meeting with reporters. “It’s a home run.”
Boone, who said he thought Beck “overall” did a good job, still was angry about Barry missing what would have been Judge’s eighth homer.
“The third baseman [Junior Caminero], the third-base coach [Luis Rojas], our replay knew. Judge knew,” Boone said.
Said Judge: “Yeah, it was a fair ball. But that’s why we’ve got replay. It’s not on the umpires, it’s tough in a situation like this where we’re at a minor-league park, the foul poles aren’t as high. That’s why you have replay; they have every angle. But that’s a fair ball.”
The Yankees (14-8) outhit the Rays 9-2, getting home runs from Trent Grisham, Cody Bellinger and Austin Wells.
Three pitches into the afternoon, the Yankees had the lead, not a huge surprise in that they entered the day collectively slashing .301/.408/.542 out of the leadoff spot.
The, um, leading man on this day was Grisham, who blasted a 2-and-0, 94-mph fastball to rightfield for his sixth homer. He also made a terrific defensive play in the fifth, tracking down a wind-blown drive into the gap in right-center by Mangum, making a tumbling catch and turning it into an inning-ending double play.
Second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. kept the no-hitter — at the time, anyway — intact in the seventh when he somehow tracked down a flare off the bat of Christopher Morel and made a diving backhand catch in shallow left-center. Fried also picked off Morel at second to end the fourth.
“It was a pretty crazy series,” said Bellinger, whose homer leading off the sixth made it 3-0. “We’re playing really good as a team right now. It’s just fun to be a part of.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
