HOUSTON -- After the Braves' Game 5 loss to the Astros to send the World Series back to Houston, I was walking to my rental car among hoards of dejected Braves fans. I overheard one group discussing how they were thankful to have Max Fried on extra rest and mentioned Tom Glavine in the 1995 World Series.
Cleveland had just won Game 5 in the 1995 World series to force a Game 6 in Atlanta. The Braves needed to close out Game 6 to avoid facing elimination in Game 7. As amazing as Game 7s are, if you can avoid them, everyone would love to. Glavine went out and fired eight scoreless innings, allowing just one hit.
Fried's Game 6 here in 2021 was shades of Glavine. The offense certainly helped, but Fried just essentially told his boys he was going to put them on his back, especially once Jorge Soler obliterated that three-run homer out of the ballpark.
Fried was pitching on one day extra of rest, but you still have to give him credit here. He had just faced this stacked offense in Game 2 and got roughed up -- though the line looks worse than he pitched due to some awful luck on ground balls in play. And he's well beyond his career high in innings for a season, looping in the postseason.
"To be able to get a little bit of a redo after Game 2, I just wanted to make the most of it," Fried said after the game on MLB Network. "I knew it was going to be my last outing and I just wanted to leave everything out there."
"It's indescribable," he said. "I don't really know how to explain it, but I'm just really happy that it happened. Honestly, just to be able to do it with this group of guys, everything that we went through this year with all the injuries, the ups, the downs ... to be able to piece it together. I couldn't be prouder of this group."
Ramping an arm all the way up to nearly 200 innings after a pandemic-shortened season is tough.
Heading into the game, I thought the likeliest outcome was that the Astros offense would keep the good times rolling and rough Fried up.
Instead, he dominated. He even overcame, again, some terrible luck in the first inning. After a well-placed infield single from Jose Altuve, a very weird play happened that gave the Astros two runners on with no out.
Michael Brantley was called safe on a close play at first while stepping on Max Fried's ankle. pic.twitter.com/Jo4dZC4YwY
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) November 3, 2021
Fried's lucky he didn't badly injury his foot or ankle there, too.
"I realized it was first and second and no outs and I didn't want a repeat of what happened in Game 2 when things got out of hand and the next thing you know there's four runs on the board, so I kinda just knew that it would be a pivotal moment and emptied the tank to try to get out of it."
He gutted through it by getting a strikeout, groundout and strikeout.
He faced the minimum in the second through fifth innings, erasing two baserunners via double play and efficiently working the zone, needing just 74 pitches to get through six. He struck out six. He didn't walk anyone. He only gave up four hits and none of them were for extra bases.
Once the Braves grabbed a 5-0 lead, the game was effectively over. Fried was in far too much control of the game for the result to be in doubt.
This Game 6 was Max Fried's game, just like it was a fellow lefty's game in 1995's Game 6. And the Braves now have their first World Series title since 1995. How fitting.
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