Yankees ace Max Fried being back on track is a positive development that the club needed

HOUSTON – There was no shortage of positives from the Yankees’ 7-1 series-opening victory Tuesday over the Astros.

There was, of course, the emphatic nature of the win itself, a welcome development for the Yankees, who have struggled much of the season against teams they might see come October.

They improved to 13-20 against clubs that would currently make the AL playoffs – the Astros, Tigers, Blue Jays, Red Sox and Mariners (after this series, the Yankees play the Blue Jays, Tigers and Red Sox).

As Jazz Chisholm Jr. put it afterward: “These are the [teams] that we’re probably going to play in the playoffs, and this is what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to go out there and dominate. Early, often and consistently.”

Chisholm was on the list of positives, homering twice to extend his personal single-season best total to 28 and putting him on track to become just the third Yankee to record a 30-30 (30 homers, 30 stolen bases) season. Chisholm, who has 26 stolen bases, would join Bobby Bonds, who did it in 1975 and Alfonso Soriano, who did it in 2002 and ’03.

But there was no more positive development from the night, as far as the impact it could have on just how far the Yankees go in October, than the performance of Max Fried.

The lefthander, signed to an eight-year, $218 free agent contract in December, appears to have gotten back on track after a brutal six-week stretch midseason looked as if it might sink his season.

Fried finished the month of June very much in the thick of the discussion for the AL Cy Young award, 10-2 with a 1.92 ERA through 17 starts.

But that momentum came to an emphatic stop as, during an eight-game stretch from July 1-Aug. 16, Fried went 3-3 with a 6.80 ERA.

After the final of those starts, Aug. 16 in St. Louis when Fried allowed a season-high seven runs in a 12-8 victory, the veteran pitcher seemingly had no answers.

“I definitely have to change something and change it up quick,” he said that night.

Fried has.

He threw six scoreless innings in a 1-0 loss to the Red Sox Aug. 22 and followed that with seven mostly dominant innings five days later in an 11-2 victory over the Nationals. In Tuesday night’s 7-1 victory over the Astros, Fried did not allow a hit until the fifth inning and allowed one run and four hits over seven innings in which there was little hard contact.

“Just mixing my pitches,” Fried said of what has been different the last three starts in which he’s going 2-0 with a 0.90 ERA with 18 strikeouts in 20 innings. “Just pitching. Not trying to get the punch-out, just focusing on trying to get ground balls, changing speeds, keeping hitters off balance. It’s what I do best.”

Manager Aaron Boone, in starting to describe the outing, said: “Max doing his thing on the mound.”

“I think, again, [he had] a presence with everything,” Boone said. “They [the Astros] hit him pretty well when they faced us in New York, and, I thought, kind of boxed him into some situations where they were hunting correctly.”

That was on Aug. 10 at the Stadium when Fried allowed four runs and eight hits over five innings of a 7-1 loss.

“I thought he mixed really well [Tuesday],” Boone said. “I thought his breaking ball was good, he had a presence with his changeup, the sweeper, the sinker, four-seam, cutter… he was very unpredictable. Stuff was good and he just managed the game really well.”

The Yankees’ rotation overall has done that in recent weeks, turning around what had been a prolonged stretch of collective difficulties that coincided with the club’s 22-32 stretch from June 13-Aug. 13 (not that it was all at the feet of the starters as the bullpen wasn’t good in that period and the offense was inconsistent).

The rotation entered Tuesday night having allowed two earned runs or fewer in its last nine starts and had allowed two earned runs or fewer in 22 of its previous 25 starts.

A reversal desperately needed as the Yankees head down the stretch, with no one’s turnaround more important than Fried’s.

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.