Daily playoff updates

Blue Jays fry Fried

Playoff Results (Oct. 4-5)

• Yankees ace Max Fried is hardly recognizable in Game 2 of the team’s A.L. Division Series against Toronto on October 5. The Cy Young Award candidate — who threw 6.1 shutout innings in New York’s Wild Card loss to the Red Sox on September 30 — lasted just 3 innings in Sunday’s 13-7 loss, giving up 7 earned runs on 8 hits, 2 walks, and one strikeout to cede Toronto a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five Series. (Watch his post-game interview.) Yankees reliever Will Warren doesn’t fare much better, yielding 6 earned runs over 4.2 innings. (Toronto was second only to the Yankees among A.L. teams in runs scored during the 2025 regular season.) Still, Fried’s performance was historically bad. In 183 regular-season starts since his 2017 debut, the 6’4″ southpaw has lasted 3 or fewer innings only 8 times, and even then he has never given up more than 5 earned runs. But Regular-Season Max and Playoff Max are like two different pitchers. Regular-Season Max has a career record of 92-41 with a 3.03 ERA, while Playoff Max is 2-6 with a 5.31 ERA (10/6/2025)
• LF Harrison Bader makes several contributions to the Phillies in Game 1 of their best-of-five N.L. Division Series against Los Angeles, including a warning-track sacrifice fly off RHP Shohei Ohtani in a 3-run second inning, a diving catch with a Dodger on base in the top of the fifth inning, and a hit-by-pitch at the hands of an 86.3-mph Ohtani sweeper in the bottom of inning. But it’s not enough to stave off a 5-3 defeat or to prevent Bader from leaving the game in the seven inning with groin tightness. According to MLB.com, “imaging revealed ‘no major tear or strain’…but it remains to be seen whether he [Bader] will be available — and if so, in what capacity — for Game 2” on October 6. Philadelphia RHP Max Lazar and C Garrett Stubbs do not play (10/5/2025)

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Weekly Roundup (Sep. 23-29)

Top Stories (Sep. 23-29)

• LHP Max Fried (Yankees) is the first Jewish pitcher in 45 years to win at least 19 games, thanks to an 8-1 win over the White Sox on September 24 that raised his season record to an MLB-best 19-5. The last Jewish hurler to accomplish the feat? Orioles righty Steve Stone, who went 25-7 in 1980 to earn the A.L. Cy Young Award. Fried surrendered just 4 hits and 2 walks over 7 innings against Chicago while fanning 7 batters in his regular-season finale — a fitting end to a September that earned him A.L. Pitcher of the Month honors after going 5-0 with a 1.89 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, and 35 strikeouts against 9 walks. Not surprisingly, Fried will start Game 1 of New York’s Wild Card series against Boston today. Will he, like Stone, earn A.L. Cy Young honors? ESPN’s Cy Young Predictor says yes, but Jayson Stark of The Athletic ranked Fried a distant 5th in a September 26 article. Just ask teammate Aaron Judge — the odds-on favorite to be named 2025 A.L. MVP — how valuable the lanky southpaw has been in his first year as a Yankee (9/30/2025)
• Astros rookie Colton Gordon effectively had two seasons in 2025. Beginning with his Major League debut on May 14 and ending July 31, the southpaw went 4-3 with a 4.74 ERA and nearly 5 times as many strikeouts as walks across 12 starts and one relief gig. Things went south after that: from August 1 through his second-to-last appearance of the season, Gordon went 1-1 with one save, an 8.84 ERA, and 8 HRs yielded over just 18.1 innings. But his relief appearance in Game #162 changed the narrative. With Houston locked in a 1-1 with the Angels through 3 innings on September 28, the 6’4″ University of Central Florida alum entered the game and did what no one expected, tossing 5 scoreless, no-hitting innings with one walk en route to a 6-4 win. Gordon needed just 68 pitches to plow through 16 L.A. batters (9/30/2025)

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MLB News (Sep. 23-29)

• Five Jewish players are on teams that made the 2025 playoffs. Philadelphia, which will face either the Dodgers or the Reds in the best-of-five N.L. Division Series that commences October 4, boasts three of the five: CF Harrison Bader, RHP Max Lazar, and C Garrett Stubbs. The other two Jews, LHP Max Fried (Yankees) and 3B Alex Bregman (Red Sox), will face off in a best-of-three Wild Card series that begins today. LHP Colton Gordon came close but lost out when his Astros were eliminated from contention in Game #161 on Saturday (9/30/2025)
• Speaking of LHP Max Fried (Yankees) and 3B Alex Bregman (Red Sox), how will they fare against one another in the upcoming playoffs? If the past is a guide, things aren’t looking great for Fried. The first time the pair faced one another was in Game 2 of the 2021 World Series, when Houston’s Bregman hit a sacrifice fly off Atlanta’s Fried for a 1-0 lead, then went 0-for-4 with 2 strikeouts over the rest of the Series. While playing with the same franchises in 2023 and 2024, Bregman got the best of Fried, going a combined 1-for-3 with 3 walks and an RBI single. The 10-year Major Leaguer performed even better in 2025 as a newly-minted Bostonian, going 4-for-6 with three singles and a solo HR on September 13 against new Yankees ace Fried. Thank you to JBN reader Ethel H. for the tip (9/30/2025)
• And still more on Max Fried: Yankees catcher Ben Rice served as Fried’s batterymate for the first time on September 24. Half an hour into the game, MLB.com tweeted a photo of the pair, along with the tagline “Fried Rice for the first time tonight.” Rice told reporters he made the same observation when he walked into the team’s pregame meeting. “It’s such a layup of a joke I had to say it right when we got in there” (9/30/2025)
• 1B Spencer Horwitz (Pirates) ended the 2025 season on a high note. In a 9-3 win over the Braves on September 26, the 27-year-old went 3-for-3 with 2 HRs, 2 walks, and 4 RBIs. His bat was pivotal against the Reds on September 24, putting Pittsburgh up 1-0 with a double and 2-0 with a single, and then stroking a game-winning double in the top of the 11th inning en route to a 4-3 victory. All told for the week of September 23-28, Horwitz ranked #2 among all Major League hitters with a .556 batting average (10-for-18) and .619 OBP, #3 with a 1.675 OPS and 0.7 WAR (tied), and tied for #5 with 7 RBI. Not bad, especially when you consider that a wrist injury kept him out of the lineup until May 17 (9/30/2025)
• Having discussed Spencer Horwitz’s hitting prowess, let’s not ignore recent developments involving his defense. In a September 28 article, Pittsburgh manager Don Kelly revealed plans to move the first baseman around the infield in order to get good-hitting teammates some at-bats, even to shortstop or third base. Kelly demonstrated the experiment by starting Horwitz at second base in a September 28 game against the Braves, his first time at the position since joining the Pirates (9/30/2025)
• It was more pinch-hit heroics for Rowdy Tellez (Rangers) on September 28. With 2 men on in the top of the 10th inning and Texas and Cleveland tied 5-5, manager Bruce Bochy sent Tellez in to pinch-hit for Jake Burger, and the 6’4″ first baseman literally rose to the occasion by sending a 79.8-mph curveball into the right-field stands. (Joc Pederson’s pinch-hit opportunity in the 9th inning, by contrast, ended in a groundout.) Alas, the Guardians came up with 4 runs in the bottom of the inning to prevail 9-8, but that did not take away from Tellez’s status as a pinch-hit savant in 2025. The 30-year-old hit .348 (8-for-23) in a pinch and led the Majors in HRs (3) and RBIs (11) — all while hitting just .216 as a position player (9/30/2025)
• RHP Dean Kremer’s final start of the season was his finest. In a September 23 game against the Rays, the Israeli-American allowed just 2 baserunners, a single and a hit batsman, over 6.1 scoreless innings en route to a 6-0 triumph. Kremer — who went 2-0 in September with a 1.10 ERA and held opposing batters to a .091 average — has bedeviled Tampa Bay his entire career. In 11 starts against the Rays, he is 5-1 with a 1.64 ERA (9/30/2025)
• Leadoff batter Joc Pederson (Rangers) smashed the second pitch of the game 411 feet at 109.2-mph against the Twins on September 23, but it proved Texas’ only run in a 4-1 defeat (9/30/2025)
• Stu Sternberg, who served 20 years as the Tampa Bay Rays’ majority owner before selling the franchise earlier this month, was not a fan favorite by the end of his tenure in St. Petersburg. Maybe it’s because, as the New York Times recently noted, he put winning ahead of player loyalty, regularly trading “emerging stars for low-salaried prospects.” Maybe it’s because he never became a full-time local resident, regularly butted heads with local lawmakers, and bailed on a hail-mary deal designed to keep the team in St. Pete by sharing the cost of a new stadium. But local columnist Marc Topkin painted a different picture in a September 24 eulogy, revealing a humble and honorable man who treated his employees with kindness and generosity (9/30/2025)

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Minor-League Bulletin (Sep. 23-29)

• The 2025 minor-league playoffs ended September 27, but not before a trio of Triple-A relievers on the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (Yankees) got a chance to strut their postseason stuff. All three men — Harrison Cohen, and MLB veterans Jake Bird and Scott Effross — appeared in Game 2 of the International League Championship Series on September 24. Bird tossed 1.1 perfect innings and struck out two, Scott Effross pitched a scoreless inning on just 8 pitches, and Cohen gave up one earned run in a one-inning stint. The RailRiders ended up losing to the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (Marlins) by a 6-4 score. Jacksonville went on to win Game 3 and advance to the Triple-A National Championship game, which it lost to the Pacific Coast League champs, Oakland’s Las Vegas Aviators (9/30/2025)
• Although minor-league teams won’t resume play until March 2026, you can watch RHP Jacob Steinmetz (Diamondbacks/High-A) compete in Arizona Fall League, which opens October 6. He will compete for the Salt River Rafters (9/30/2025)

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Season Stats

Transactions

• Athletics call up LHP Jared Shuster from Triple-A (9/29/2025)
• Cardinals reassign 3B Noah Mendlinger to Double-A (9/21/2025)
• Athletics place 2B Zack Gelof on injured list with left-shoulder dislocation (9/20/2025)

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