Fried's gem lifts Yanks despite Judge's 4-K opener

SAN FRANCISCO -- The 2026 Major League Baseball season began Wednesday night at Oracle Park with a lot of nontraditional pageantry -- people dancing on taxi cabs on one side, cable cars on the other -- but once the game started, the surprises ended.

The New York Yankees, with a familiar but formidable lineup, scored five runs in the second inning and drafted behind starting pitcher Max Fried to open the season with a 7-0 win over the Giants. Beyond that, there wasn't much to recommend from a game that marked the debut of Giants manager Tony Vitello.

Much of the offseason conversation regarding the Yankees centered on their lack of activity in the trade and free agent market. While division rivals Toronto and Baltimore were active in upgrading their rosters, the Yankees returned 24 of the 26 players who finished last season with an AL Division Series loss to the Blue Jays. For one night, though, the Yankees scored one for continuity.

The Yankees, who led baseball with 274 homers last season, had nine singles and just one extra-base hit, an RBI triple by Trent Grisham in the second. Aaron Judge, the back-to-back AL MVP, was the only Yankee who didn't reach base, and he struck out four times.

"This team led the league in runs scored last year, and we have a lot of the same guys back," Fried said. "One through nine can beat you."

Fried, who led baseball with 19 wins last season, got his first of this season by tossing 6⅓ innings and allowing just two hits. The Giants got a runner to third base just once, in a choppy first inning that saw Fried walk leadoff hitter Luis Arraez, a man stubbornly resistant to walks, and allow a single to Rafael Devers. From that point, Fried allowed just two more baserunners.

"It's really a testament to just how good he is and how he can beat you in different ways," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "In some ways, it was a bit of a grind for him tonight, in and out of rhythm a little bit, but his arsenal is so vast, and he was a little effectively wild tonight."

With Fried on the mound, the outcome became inevitable when the Yankees scored five runs off Giants ace Logan Webb in the second inning with four singles, including a two-run dribbler up the middle off the bat of Ryan McMahon, and Grisham's triple. The cushion seemed to immediately cure Fried of his first-inning shakiness.

"Definitely was searching," Fried said, "but when the guys go out there and put up five runs in the second, it allows you to take a deep breath and get into the game. When you have a five-run lead you have a little more room for error."

The Yankees -- and, to be sure, the Giants -- made Vitello's debut one to forget. He became the first person to make the leap directly from college head coach to big league manager when he was hired away from Tennessee by Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey. The unconventional move to bring in the high-energy Vitello was intended to create a tectonic shift in the team's culture after four straight non-playoff seasons.

It's tempting but unwise to draw sweeping conclusions from one game, but the Giants, after a spring-long emphasis on defense and fundamentals, showed some of the same poor decisions and sloppy play that marked their past four years of disappointment. Heliot Ramos, who became the first Giants player to start consecutive seasons in left field since Barry Bonds, kick-started the Yankees' second-inning rally with an ill-advised throw to third base that allowed Jose Caballero to reach second and set up McMahon's two-run single. The Yankees scored an unearned run in the fifth when shortstop Willy Adames threw wide to first attempting to turn a double play.

Caballero made regular-season MLB history in the fourth inning, when he became the first player to challenge a call through the automated ball-strike system. He felt a Webb sinker was high, but the call was upheld when video revealed it nicked the top of the inside corner.

Asked if he was surprised home plate umpire Bill Miller was ruled correct, Caballero said, "Yeah, a little bit. I thought it was higher than what it showed."