Getty

The Yankees may have dodged a bullet with Max Fried's elbow injury.

The New York Yankees may be able to breathe a sigh of relief about ace left-hander Max Fried.

The Yankees starter expressed optimism that he wouldn’t miss significant time after leaving his start against the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday due to left-elbow posterior soreness.

Fried threw just three innings and allowed five hits and three earned runs. He was not sharp, though he did not experience a dip in velocity, but Yankees Universe collectively held its breath when Paul Blackburn took over for him to start the fourth inning.

The Yankees lost 7-0, amassing just one hit and falling to 1-5 in their past six games.

Max Fried is Hopeful he Will Make His Next Start

Some of the most pessimistic fans surely saw Fried’s diagnosis, and his scheduled MRI for Thursday in New York, and jumped to the conclusion that Fried would need Tommy John surgery.

Yet, the staff ace, who is 23-8 in 42 regular-season starts with the Yankees, not only addressed reporters after the game but downplayed his injury’s severity.

“I guess you never know, but I’m definitely planning on [returning] sooner rather than later,” Fried said. “I don’t want to put any timelines or anything like that. I’m not too worried about a super long-term thing. If I can, I would love to be able to make my next start, but we’ll see.”

Barring any structural issue, and if the Yankees did not decide to skip Fried’s next start, he would be scheduled to face the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday at Yankee Stadium.

Fried, who leads the majors in innings (61 2/3), starts (10) and batters faced (240) this season struggled to get loose throughout his start Wednesday. He told reporters he has battled elbow soreness this season already but had managed to work through it previously.

“It’s just a little uncomfortable and tight, especially between innings,” Fried said. “It’s hard for me to loosen up. I just wasn’t sharp, and it was just hard to keep bouncing back. I definitely wasn’t helping the team. I could’ve kept pitching, but at that point, it was like, ‘Hey, let’s make sure we can calm this thing down.’

“Normally, it goes away. This one, I think it’s probably just one too many times. It’s a little irritated.”

Max Fried’s Injury Could be Linked to a Previous Tommy John Surgery

Fried is a veteran with a lot of miles on his arm. He had Tommy John surgery already back in 2014, when he was a minor-league prospect in the San Diego Padres system.

So, according to Dr. Laith Jazrawi, chief of sports medicine at NYU Langone, Fried’s most recent injury could be tied to that surgery, even though it came more than a decade ago.

“Could the ligament be failing again, like it failed the first time? Absolutely, and one of the early signs of that is posterior elbow pain,” Jazrawi told The Athletic. “Or, more than likely, if he had Tommy John a while ago … (it could be) posterior elbow spurs.”

Bone spurs are typically related to wear and tear on a pitcher’s elbow and can be relieved by rest, or potentially arthroscopic surgery. But the Yankees will need to wait to see Fried’s imaging.

“Obviously, they’re going to look at the integrity of the ligament,” Jazrawi said. “My guess is that it’s going to show increased signal but an intact ligament. That’s what we usually see with these.”