MILWAUKEE – Max Fried was so sharp and impressive in his start Saturday at St. Louis that it didn’t seem unreasonable to wonder if the Braves rookie had figured some things out and perhaps turned a corner in his career.
But when he took the mound again five days later against the Brewers, it was a reminder that trying to diagram or predict the progression of a young pitcher is usually an exercise in futility.
After recording 11 strikeouts in 6 2/3 scoreless innings of a win against the Cardinals, Fried lasted three innings in a 7-2 loss against the Brewers and gave up four hits, four runs and three walks with one strikeout.
Staked to a two-run lead in the first inning, Fried gave up one run in the first inning and three runs in the second. He was removed after three innings when a blister began to form on the middle finger of his pitching hand, an issue he dealt with several times during his minor league career.
Fried said that wasn’t a contributing factor in his struggles during the first two innings.
The Braves kept it a two-run game until the Brewers got three in the eighth inning against reliever Dan Winkler, including a mammoth two-run homer from Hernan Perez.
The last of four runs against Fried scored when he threw a wild pitch on ball four to pitcher Jhoulys Chacin, then dropped catcher Tyler Flowers’ toss as Fried covered home plate on what would’ve been an out if he’d caught it. It was that kind of night for the Braves and their young left-hander in the opener of a four-game series at Miller Park.
It was the third loss for the Braves since opening the 10-game trip with four consecutive wins – a sweep at St. Louis and a series-opening win at Yankee Stadium.
Atlanta’s Shane Carle retired all nine batters in three relief innings through the sixth, but the Braves couldn’t muster any offense against Chacin in that span.
Chacin, a 10-year veteran who made five undistinguished starts for the Braves in 2016, limited them to two runs and three hits in seven innings Thursday, with Ozzie Albies’ first-inning triple and third-inning double accounting for their only hits until Ender Inciarte’s infield single in the sixth.
After posting one win and a 5.40 ERA for the Braves, Chacin was 13-10 with a 3.89 ERA for San Diego in 2017 and landed a two-year contract with Milwaukee. He’s 7-3 with a 3.63 ERA this season.
As good as Fried was in his 11-K game at St. Louis, he was about that bad in the first two innings at Milwaukee in his third start of the season and the seventh of his career. In the first two innings he allowed four runs, three hits and two walks including the five-pitch walk to Chacin. He also failed to hold runners close enough to give Flowers much chance of throwing them out.
With runners in scoring position, hitters were 0-for-15 with 10 strikeouts against Fried this season before Tyler Saladino's RBI single in the second that tied the score, 2-2. Eric Kratz followed with an RBI groundout after a double steal had put two runners in scoring position. Then came the wild pitch to Chacin and suddenly the Braves trailed 4-2 in a game they had led 2-0 just a few minutes into the proceedings.
Chacin hit Inciarte in the foot with a pitch to start the game and Albies followed with a triple for a 1-0 lead. Albies then alertly dashed home from third on Freddie Freeman’s comebacker to the mound when Chacin failed to look the runner back to third base base before throwing to first.
But beginning with Freeman’s grounder, Chacin retired 15 of 16 Braves, with Albies the only runner to reach base in that span on a two-out double in the third inning. Albies has 49 extra-base hits and no other National League hitter had more than 44 before Thursday.
