ATLANTA --
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.\n\nBut 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.\n\n“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.\n\n“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**\n\nWith 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
“\\[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.”\n\n**Tomlin’s escape**\n\nNothing has come easy when Atlanta's bullpen door has opened this year.