Southern Fried gem: Lefty dominates Friars

ATLANTA -- Josh Tomlin conquered his nemesis during an impressive eighth-inning escape act and then delivered the top compliment when asked about the effective slider Max Fried threw more frequently as he guided the Braves to a 5-1 win over the Padres on Wednesday night at SunTrust Park.

“I think he knew how leery [he was] to throw it early because he knew how good his fastball and curveball are,” Tomlin said. “But like with anything else, if you don’t use it, you lose it. I think the more he throws it, the better it gets. The kid is a stud.”

There is certainly plenty to like about Fried, who found himself with a stellar 2.11 ERA after limiting San Diego (which drafted him seventh overall in 2012) to one run and four hits over seven innings. The 25-year-year hurler’s four-seam fastball averaged 94.6 mph, up from his previous season average of 93.6 mph, which ranked fifth among left-handed starters (minimum 300 pitches) entering Wednesday.

The average spin rate of his curveball (2,860 revolutions per minute) ranked fourth among all southpaws who have thrown the pitch at least 100 times. So it wasn’t necessarily surprising to see him use this pitch to conclude five of his seven strikeouts.

But the key to Fried’s recent development has been the confidence he has gained in his slider which he used 14 times while stifling the Padres’ lineup. He exited Spring Training willing to occasionally show this pitch, but didn’t use it more than eight times in a game before leaning on it 12 times while recording a season-high eight strikeouts against the Rockies on Friday.

“A guy that can spin a ball like that is just so … with that fastball,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said, attempting to find the right complimentary words. “His arsenal is really good. Adding that slider has been really good for him. It’s a strike pitch he can go to. The curveball is a swing-and-miss pitch.”

Fried got three whiffs with the slider, but more importantly he induced weak contact each of the three instances this pitch was put in play. He used the pitch to conclude a second-inning strikeout of Ty France and then really saw its value when he got Wil Myers to ground into an inning-ending double play with two on in the fifth.

“Once I brought it into a game, it felt better than I thought it was going to,” Fried said. “Each game, I’ve gotten more confident with it.”

Fried’s removal

With a runner on third and one out in a one-run game, Snitker really had no choice but to lift Fried after 85 pitches and provide a run-scoring pinch-hitting opportunity for Ronald Acuña Jr., who had started each of the team’s previous 29 games. Acuna’s sharp grounder scored Charlie Culberson, who got his first start of the season, and it helped set the stage for Dansby Swanson to cap the inning with a two-run homer.

“[Fried] went seven innings,” Snitker said. “If it was 5-1, I probably would have left him in. But in a game like that, runs are at a premium. I just feel like you need to keep trying to score. He did his job.”

Tomlin’s escape

Nothing has come easy when Atlanta's bullpen door has opened this year. Jacob Webb created some hope when he recorded the final two outs of Monday’s series-opening win, but the rookie threatened Fried’s effort by allowing San Diego to load the bases with nobody out in the eighth.

Enter Tomlin, who has certainly enhanced his stock since signing a Minor League deal after being released by the Brewers during Spring Training’s final weekend. The right-hander induced a Franmil Reyes comebacker that resulted in a forceout at the plate. He then ended the inning with consecutive strikeouts of Manny Machado and Hunter Renfroe.

Machado was 5-for-8 with two home runs against Tomlin before stranding a pair of runners with a weak pop fly to end Monday’s eighth. The Padres’ $300 million man saw two cutters and three four-seamers during that five-pitch at-bat. He saw four more cutters, including the 2-2 pitch he whiffed on, during this latest five-pitch battle against the Braves reliever.

“I knew what I did [Monday], but against a hitter like that, if you get in patterns or you get predictable against them, they do damage,” Tomlin said. “So for me, it was more trying to keep him off the barrel. I wasn’t trying to go for a strikeout. You try to keep it off the barrel, because a guy like that can change a game with one swing of the bat, and that’s the last thing I wanted to have happen.”