September 3, 2017: Atlanta’s Max Fried begins dominance of Cubs with victory in first career start

Picking sixth overall in the June 2012 amateur draft, the Chicago Cubs passed over left-handed pitcher Max Fried in favor of outfielder Albert Almora. With the next pick, the San Diego Padres selected Fried out of Harvard-Westlake High School in Los Angeles.

As a rookie in 2016, Almora made his mark in Cubs’ lore by scoring the tiebreaking run1 in the 10th inning of Game Seven of the World Series to help end their 108-year title drought.

Fried is not regarded as fondly by Cubs fans. In six career starts against Chicago through the 2024 season, all with the Atlanta Braves, Fried was 6-0 with a 1.18 ERA and 38 strikeouts in 38 innings. Four of the wins were at Wrigley Field, including a complete game on May 22, 2024, when he retired the first 15 batters.

This dominant run began with his first major-league start, in 2017. Fried had appeared in five games in the Padres’ minor-league system in 2014 before blowing out his arm. He required Tommy John surgery and was shipped to Atlanta in December in a multiplayer trade.2 He missed the 2015 season to rehab and started slowly in his first seven starts of 2016 in Class A for the Rome Braves before ripping off a 1.98 ERA over his next 10 outings.3 He finished with an 8-7 record and a 3.93 ERA.4

At times in the summer of 2017 for Fried, reaching the majors before the end of the season seemed doubtful. With Double-A Mississippi, he pitched with painful blisters on two fingers of his pitching hand and allowed 19 earned runs in four starts before spending the first three weeks of July on the disabled list. His use of the rosin bag was drying out his fingers, resulting in friction that caused the blisters.5  

After coming off the DL, Fried didn’t allow an earned run in three starts and – despite a 2-11 record and a 5.92 ERA – was called up to the Braves in early August. He allowed four earned runs and six walks in 6⅔ innings over four relief appearances before being sent down to Triple-A Gwinnett.

Fried yielded just one hit in six innings over two games for Gwinnett and was recalled to Atlanta in September. After a doubleheader the previous Wednesday in Philadelphia, the Braves wanted Fried to start on Sunday, September 3, rather than bring back veterans R.A. Dickey or Julio Teheran on short rest.

The 23-year-old Fried’s first start was in a hostile environment – in front of a packed house of 42,145 fans at fabled Wrigley Field against the defending World Series champions. His opponent was Mike Montgomery, who closed out the final inning of Game Seven against the Cleveland Indians the previous fall. Montgomery was 5-6 with 3 saves and a 3.29 ERA in 37 games (10 starts). He had started and won his last two games, allowing just one earned run in 13 innings.

Near the end of its fourth consecutive losing season, Atlanta had a record of 59-75, which put the Braves in third place in the NL East Division, 22½ games behind the first-place Washington Nationals. They had lost six of their previous eight, including the first three games of the series at Wrigley Field.

The Cubs were in contention for a repeat title, leading the NL Central Division with a 75-60 mark. They had a 4½-game lead on the Milwaukee Brewers, their largest of the season. Chicago had won a season-high six consecutive games and nine straight at home. With a victory in the final game of the seven-game homestand, the Cubs would finish 7-0 against Atlanta and sweep the season series for only the second time since the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966.6

The Braves staked Fried to a quick lead. In the first, Ozzie Albies, a 20-year-old who had been promoted to the majors in August, dumped a single into right field with one out and went to third on a single by Freddie Freeman. He scored when Matt Kemp lofted a sacrifice fly to right fielder Jason Heyward.

After a perfect 10-pitch first inning, Fried struck out Anthony Rizzo to start the second inning but then walked Javier Báez. With rookie Ian Happ batting, Fried picked off Báez, who broke for second and slid headfirst into the bag. Báez’s head hit the knee of Braves second baseman Albies as he was tagged out.7

Báez, who had moved from second base to shortstop when Addison Russell went on the disabled list in early August,8 came back for the following inning but removed himself after one out because of blurred vision.9 He was replaced by Mike Freeman, who had recently been called up from Iowa after signing a Triple-A contract in August.10

Two pitches after Báez was tagged out at second, Happ hit his 21st home run of the season to tie the game. The blast put him fourth on the all-time list for homers by a Cubs rookie.11

Atlanta regained the lead in the fourth inning against Montgomery. Freeman led off with a double to right and moved to third on Kemp’s fly to right. After Nick Markakis walked, Dansby Swanson grounded a single to left; Freeman scored and Markakis went to second. Braves rookie third baseman Rio Ruiz, Fried’s former Southern California travel-ball teammate, bounced a single to left to score Markakis and make the score 3-1.

Fried faced the minimum in the fourth, thanks to a 5-6-3 double play after walking Kris Bryant to start the inning but ran into trouble in the fifth. Happ singled to left on the first pitch. Heyward broke his bat on a comebacker that Fried turned into a force at second.12 After René Rivera struck out swinging, Jon Jay hit for Montgomery and drew a walk. Ben Zobrist singled to load the bases on a ball that went off Fried’s glove for an infield hit. Fried escaped by getting Almora to ground to first baseman Freeman, who threw to second for the force on Zobrist.

Fried was finished for the day with four strikeouts, three walks, and four hits allowed in five innings.

The game then turned into a battle of the bullpens as a parade of relievers each pitched one scoreless inning through the eighth inning.

In the sixth, Cubs skipper Joe Maddon summoned 25-year-old right-hander Dillon Maples from the bullpen for his major-league debut; he allowed just a two-out walk to Swanson. He was followed by Justin Grimm, who allowed a two-out walk in the seventh to Ender Inciarte, and Héctor Rondón, who pitched a perfect eighth.

The Braves’ relievers matched the Cubs bullpen each inning. A.J. Minter took over for Fried and set Chicago down in order in the sixth. Sam Freeman worked around a one-out single by Heyward in the seventh before José Ramirez set the Cubs down in order in the eighth, including strikeouts of Zobrist and Bryant.

Atlanta tacked on two runs in the final inning against Cubs right-hander Félix Peña. Markakis led off with a single and moved to third on Swanson’s ground-rule double down the left-field line. Ruiz picked up his second and third RBIs of the game with a grounder up the middle that increased the Braves’ lead to 5-1.

Arodys Vizcaíno retired the heart of the Chicago order in the ninth, securing Fried’s victory with a swinging strikeout of Happ to end the game.

A happy Fried greeted each teammate and coach with a hug or handshake as they made their way to the visiting clubhouse. “I just wanted to say thank you,” he said. “I can’t do it alone.”13

“It was definitely really crazy,” Fried said of the atmosphere at Wrigley Field. “But we got the win, that was my goal coming into it. Came in and did what I wanted to do. I couldn’t be happier now.”14

“Wrigley Field against the defending World [Series] champs, there’s a lot of energy out there and a lot of emotions,” said Atlanta manager Brian Snitker. “I thought he handled himself really, really well.”15

Fried’s success was credited to his curveball, which resulted in four swinging strikes and three called strikes. “That (curveball) just keeps breaking,” said Snitker. “I know it’s hard to get a hold of, because it’s got a lot of bite, and it just keeps breaking. It’s nice when a guy’s got a knack for that, because it’s a huge weapon for him.”16

Fried started three more games and made one relief appearance in 2017, finishing with a record of 1-1 with a 3.81 ERA in 26 innings. He split 2018 between the minors and majors and went 1-4 with a 2.94 ERA in 33⅔ big-league innings. In 2019 Fried led the Braves with 17 wins. Through 2024, he had made two All-Star teams, received three Gold Gloves, and finished in the top five of the NL’s Cy Young Award voting twice.

Author’s Note

The author attended this game with his wife, son, and sister on a Labor Day weekend trip and sat in left field in the famous Wrigley Field bleachers for the first time. They also attended the previous day’s game when the Cubs held on to win a slugfest against the Braves.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kurt Blumenau and copy-edited by Len Levin.   

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted data from Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org. He also reviewed a recording of the CSN television broadcast of the game, posted on YouTube.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN201709030.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2017/B09030CHN2017.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxAz0b1txxI

Photo credit: Max Fried, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Almora ran for Kyle Schwarber, who singled to lead off the top of the 10th inning.

2 The Padres sent Fried, Dustin Peterson, Jace Peterson, and Mallex Smith to the Atlanta Braves for Aaron Northcraft and Justin Upton.

3 David O’Brien, “Braves’ Fried Ready For ‘Fun’ at Wrigley in First Start,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 2, 2017, https://www.ajc.com/sports/baseball/braves-fried-ready-for-fun-wrigley-first-start/a0fms2CVEUtHLEPv2nK4XO/.

4 Fried ended the season well; in his last 11 games he had a 2.80 ERA with 72 strikeouts and 19 walks in 54⅔ innings. O’Brien.

5 David O’Brien, “Childhood Pals Help Snap Cubs’ Streak,” Atlanta Constitution, September 4, 2017: C1.

6 In the 2008 season, the Cubs were 6-0 against Atlanta.

7 After the play was reviewed, the umpire’s out call was upheld.

8 Russell was suffering from plantar fasciitis in his right foot.

9 Báez missed the Cubs’ next game in Pittsburgh but returned to the lineup at shortstop the following day. Paul Sullivan, “Scary Sight: Baez Exit a Harsh Reality Check,” Chicago Tribune, September 4, 2017: 4.

10 Freeman was 28 years old and in his seventh professional season when he made his major-league debut in 2016 with Arizona. He had started the 2017 season with the Seattle Mariners but was waived in late May and picked up by the Dodgers. He was 0-for-5 in four games with Los Angeles in late June. This was his first game with the Cubs.

11 Happ finished the season with 24 homers, at the time the third most for a Cubs rookie behind Bryant (26 in 2015) and Billy Williams (25 in 1961). In 2021 Patrick Wisdom hit 28 for Chicago, the most for a Cubs rookie through the 2024 season.

12 Swanson made a sprawling snag of Fried’s poor throw for the force at second and prevented an error.

13 Mark Bowman, “Fried Elated to Share First Win With Friend Ruiz,” ESPN, September 3, 2017, https://www.mlb.com/news/max-fried-beats-cubs-in-1st-major-league-start-c252259256.

14 David O’Brien, “Childhood Pals Help Snap Cubs’ Streak”.

15 Bowman.

16 David O’Brien, “Childhood Pals Help Snap Cubs’ Streak”.