Yankees shut out Rays as Max Fried, Devin Williams and Luke Weaver throw combined one-hitter
Max Fried #54 of the Yankees pitches against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium on Friday, May 2, 2025. Credit: Jim McIsaac
It isn’t exactly the bruising tandem Yankees fans expected in the offseason, back in that other lifetime known as the Juan Soto sweepstakes. But you’ve got to admit that it has worked out as well as anyone could have hoped, especially on nights like Friday’s 3-0 win over the Rays at Yankee Stadium.
There is Aaron Judge, of course, who currently leads all of baseball with a .430 batting average. And then there’s the man right below him in that statistical category, slotting in at .361. That’s right: 37-year-old Paul Goldschmidt, with his one-year “prove it’’ contract — the same Paul Goldschmidt who, yes, was an MVP three seasons ago, but who also spent the first half of last year batting away murmurs that perhaps his career was coming to a close.
Rumors of that particular demise appear to be greatly exaggerated.
So, too, is the belief that the Yankees would flounder without Gerrit Cole anchoring the pitching staff.
Judge and Goldschmidt both went 2-for-4, and Goldschmidt’s three-run homer with two outs in the fifth inning provided all of the scoring Max Fried would need. The lefty continued his brilliant start, moving to 6-0 with a 1.01 ERA by combining with Devin Williams and Luke Weaver to pitch a one-hitter with nine strikeouts.
Fried, who went seven innings, has allowed five earned runs and 31 hits in 44 2⁄3 innings. He has allowed one earned run or fewer in five starts, and the Yankees have won all seven games he has started.
It was Williams’ third straight scoreless outing since he lost his closer job to Weaver, who has allowed no runs and three hits in 15 innings, striking out 16. The Rays had only five baserunners on a fifth-inning single by Jose Caballero, two walks, a hit batsman and an error by Anthony Volpe, and thanks to a pickoff by Fried and a double play turned by the Yankees, they faced only three batters more than the minimum.
Meanwhile, Judge owns a 28-game on-base streak and a 12-game hitting streak. Goldschmidt, in what appears to be an answer to the Yankees’ search for a productive first baseman, has reached base safely in 25 of 32 games.
“Another big night for him,” Aaron Boone said of Goldschmidt. “Yes, he’s on the older side, of course, but he’s a specimen — still a lot of power and fast twitch [muscles] and so [before the season], I was confident . . . I thought he built some good momentum going into the season and obviously has been really good.”
Judge kept his torrid streak going against Rays starter Ryan Pepiot in the third, hitting his second triple of the season and seventh of his career, but the damage didn’t come until the fifth.
Jorbit Vivas, playing in his first major-league game after 601 games in the minors, led off the inning with a walk, one of two he drew Friday. One batter later, Judge doubled down the leftfield line to put runners on second and third and chase Pepiot. Mason Montgomery struck out Ben Rice swinging for the second out, but Goldschmidt hit a high-arching 350-foot homer to right off a letter-high fastball for the 3-0 lead.
“I love playing with him and picking his brain as much as possible,” Goldschmidt said of Judge. “I don’t think anything about [my average]. This is a long season. I’d love to get a hit every time. I’d love to have a high average, the most wins, the most homers as we can, but we know there are going to be ups and downs. So I think, for me, a big part is really just not paying attention to it and just showing up and putting the work in.”
In Cole’s absence, Fried has been everything the Yankees could have wanted and more. Though he allowed traffic on the basepaths early, he took a no-hitter into the fifth, when Caballero lined a clean single to left.
After allowing three baserunners in the first 2 1⁄3 innings, Fried retired 11 of the next 12 — a stretch broken up by Volpe’s seventh-inning error. He got the next three outs behind two strikeouts and a forceout and later credited catcher Austin Wells for settling him down in the early going.
“I was a little erratic at times where I felt like I lost it for a hitter but being able to work with him, trust him, [got] me back on track,” Fried said. “It definitely helps when you get three runs on one swing, too . . . It’s way better to be on [Goldschmidt’s] team than against him.”
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
