Max Fried is a Yankee for this exact moment

This is the kind of assignment that used to fall on the right shoulder of David Cone, or the left one of Andy Pettitte, back in the dynasty days. CC Sabathia merrily assumed the burden for a while, including the last time the Yankees went the distance. If things had gone according to plan this year, it would be Gerrit Cole’s responsibility.

But Cole is still rehabbing his elbow.

So the ball will be in Max Fried’s hand Sunday afternoon at Toronto’s Rogers Centre. If Aaron Boone is a student of history, maybe he’ll do what managers like Miller Huggins and Joe McCarthy and Casey Stengel used to do, and he’ll symbolically put the ball in one of Fried’s spikes when he reports for work.

And then Fried will do what a man who’ll be earning $218 million over this and the next seven seasons must be required to do: He will go out and he will steer the Yankees train back onto the tracks. He will make the 10-1 clobbering they absorbed from the Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon fade to black. He will do his part to send the Yankees back to The Bronx tied 1-1, owning the home-field advantage in this best-of-five ALDS.