Max Fried snaps out of funk to look like ace Yankees need

This was the Max Fried of April, May and June.

The ace who wouldn’t give an inch to the opposition.

Who was at his best when it was needed.

The Yankees’ woes may have continued Friday night against the rival Red Sox in the form of a dismal 1-0 defeat in The Bronx, but you couldn’t blame Fried for that. He kept them in the game as Brayan Bello was putting up zeroes Friday night.

“I was using both sides of the plate, using all my pitches and just getting back to pitching,” Fried said after the Yankees fell to 1-7 against the Red Sox this season. “I feel like a lot of times I was just trying to maybe … use the fastball too much. I wanted to get back to throwing a bunch of different pitches in different counts and being OK with taking some gambles.”

The southpaw allowed just four singles across six shutout innings while striking out seven.

He retired phenom Roman Anthony all three times he faced him. Each at-bat, there were runners on base as well.

Fried threw seven different pitches against the Red Sox, and none of them more than 26 times.

He cut back on his usage of the cut fastball, throwing it on just 14 occasions. That was by design.

“I just wanted to be able to use both sides of the plate and change speeds — that’s what I do really well,” he said. “A lot of times I felt like I got backed into a corner and maybe used the cutter a little too much. I just wanted to change something up a little bit. It was good. It felt good. It was nice to keep the team in the game.”

The only negative to Fried’s outing was his pitch count was so high — 99 after six innings — he couldn’t go deeper into the game.

That was mostly the result of three walks.

But that’s nitpicking for a pitcher who had struggled so much of late.

In three previous August starts, Fried had allowed 15 earned runs over 15 innings, a 9.00 ERA. He wasn’t much better in July, pitching to a 5.54 ERA.

Maybe this is a start for Fried as September nears.

The Yankees need this version of him moving forward.

“I felt like everything was a factor for him tonight, which was good to see,” manager Aaron Boone said. “His entire arsenal played a role for him. He was really off the barrel all night.”