Max Fried fans 13 at Fenway as Atlanta Braves dominate Red Sox, 8-3

Max Fried’s dominant form on the mound continued, as he pitched seven more strong innings and reached a career high in strikeouts for a single game in his career. Atlanta’s offense more than backed it up in this one as well, as the Atlanta Braves rolled to an 8-3 win over the Boston Red Sox.

The first inning may have been quiet for Atlanta and Boston, but it was actually an early sign of how this night was going to go for Max Fried. Fried threw 17 pitches in the first inning, but he struck out the team in the process and little did we know at the time that Fried striking out Red Sox batters was about to become a recurring theme of the evening.

Even though both teams went scoreless in the first inning, it didn’t take much longer for the Braves to get going in this one. An error by Dominic Smith allowed Matt Olson to reach first base, then the Braves found themselves with runners on second and third base after Ozzie Albies reached base on a double scramble. Dominic Smith then gave the Braves an extra run on what should have been a productive ground ball to Adam Duvall. Instead, Smith dropped the throw to first and as a result, for Boston, Ozzie never stopped hustling and he came in to score shortly after Olson did to make the score at 2-0 for the Braves at this point.

Boston then responded with three runs over the next two innings. Honestly, it seemed a little unbelievable that they got past home plate at this point in the contest, because it wasn’t like Max Fried was throwing poorly in any way. Instead, the bounces just didn’t go as expected in those two frames and that was evident by the only run the Red Sox scored in the third inning.

With one out in that frame, Dominic Smith hit what would have been a pop fly out in 28 of Major League Baseball’s 30 stadiums. Instead, because he hit that particular pop fly at Fenway Park, it landed right on top of the green monster in left field and was ruled a home run. Smith made up for the run he gave up with the second inning error and the Red Sox were right in the game.

The next inning saw Boston damage Fried with a bunch of small cuts. Connor Wong came on base with one out, Rafael Devers followed with a single, Jamie Westbrook (in his second major league game) reached first base after a glove hit from Sean Murphy for catcher’s interference. then Bobby Dalbec came through with two outs on the board with a bases loaded bloop single to make it 3-2 for the Red Sox at that point. Max Fried and the rest of the Braves must have cursed their luck a little at this point in the game but that’s baseball! All you can do is move forward.

Moving forward, Atlanta did just that, as they responded the next chance they got. Jarred Kelenic led off the fifth inning with a double, then Sean Murphy wasted no time in cashing in on Kelenic by hitting a burner up the middle that Westbrook couldn’t get into his glove. Instead, it deflected to center field and Kelenic came around the base paths to score and tie the game at three.

The Braves weren’t done, as it was now time to move on and take some breathing space. It all started in the sixth inning with a leadoff walk to Austin Riley and things got worse for Kutter Crawford after Marcell Ozuna hit a single that the Boston infield couldn’t do anything with. Ozzie Albies finally came back to the plate with one out and Crawford served him a 91 mph pitch that was right in the middle of the zone. Although Crawford may have made a mistake with the pitch, Ozzie made no mistake in what he did with it when he hit it into the Red Sox bullpen in center field to making it a 6-3 game for the Atlanta Braves. The Braves finished scoring in this inning after Ozzie’s big bop, but the damage had certainly been done to end Crawford’s night after six innings.

Max Fried, meanwhile, wasn’t finished. In addition to hitting Jamie Westbrook with a pitch, Fried struck out the team to land 12 strikeouts on the night in six innings. Despite giving up three runs, it was clear that it looked like another great night on the mound for Fried. He entered the seventh inning with a three-run lead and that eventually turned into a four-run lead after Orlando Arcia found his rhythm and hit a home run into Chase Anderson’s bullpen.

Arcia’s homer meant Fried returned to the mound for his final inning of the game with a four-run lead. As if there was any doubt about what was going to happen, Fried pitched a 1-2-3 in the seventh inning to end his night and even managed another strikeout to make it a career high of 13 strikeouts on the night. It was the fifth time in Fried’s last six starts that he went at least seven innings and it’s now abundantly clear that the best pitcher in Atlanta’s rotation is completely locked in at this point in the season.

Both teams remained scoreless in the eighth inning, but the Braves made things a little more comfortable for them in the ninth inning. This comfort was not extended to Sean Murphy, however, as he was hit by a pitch to the elbow with two outs in the ninth and suffered a nasty mark on that part of his arm as a result. Murphy left the game after that and Zack Short ran for him. The Braves ended up cashing in the run after Orlando Arcia and Michael Harris II hit back-to-back singles to make it 8-3 Atlanta, but if they were being honest, they would have given the run back right away if that meant they didn’t have to worry about Sean Murphy getting hurt again.

Travis d’Arnaud entered the game to catch in the ninth inning and it ended up being an easy, breezy setting for the veteran catcher. Jesse Chavez pitched the ninth inning after Pierce Johnson pitched the eighth inning with no issues and Chavez himself found no major issues ending the game. While Chavez gave up a leadoff single to Emmanuel Valdez, a pop fly and double play ended things and brought the Braves back to 10 games above .500 for the season.

Once again, the main story of the evening was that of Max Fried who once again had a great outing on the mound. Although he allowed three runs (two earned), it was another night where he dove into the game and it was the best night of his career in strikeouts as he racked up one dozen that night — tied for the most by a National League pitcher at Fenway Park since Stephen Strasburg had 13 strikeouts for the Nationals in 2012. It also helped Atlanta’s offense explode for eight runs and two home runs on the night. This is the second time in three games that the Braves have scored eight runs and hopefully it’s a sign that the offense is starting to get on the type of run we’ve come to expect from them.

Overall, it was a great night at the ballpark for the Braves and they now have a chance to earn a mini-sweep on short notice tomorrow afternoon. Spencer Schwellenbach will make his second career start and he hopes to create some Fenway memories as the Braves embark on a season sweep of the Red Sox at 1:35 p.m. tomorrow.