BALTIMORE (AP) — Max Fried struck out 13 over seven innings while earning his major league-leading 18th victory, and the surging New York Yankees blanked the Baltimore Orioles 7-0 Thursday night.

The victory moved the Yankees within three games of first-place Toronto in the AL East. Both teams have nine games left.

New York has gone 17-7 since Aug. 23 to climb out of third place in the division and take charge of the AL wild card.

Mixing fastballs, changeups and a tantalizingly slow curve ball, Fried (18-5) dominated the last-place Orioles. His 13 strikeouts tied a career high, set last year against Boston while with the Atlanta Braves.

Fried allowed only three hits — all singles — to win his fifth straight start and reach a career high in victories. The lefty notched 17 wins in 2019 with Atlanta.

Amed Rosario provided the Yankees the lead for good with a two-run, two-out double in the first inning off Cade Povich (3-8).

It was 3-0 before New York pulled away with a four-run seventh. Paul Goldschmidt singled in a run, Aaron Judge delivered a sacrifice fly to up his RBI total to 104 and Giancarlo Stanton tacked on a two-run double.

Key moment

The Orioles had runners at the corners with two outs in the sixth in a 3-0 game before Fried struck out Tyler O’Neill to quell the threat.

Key stat

Fried is 11-3 with a 3.28 ERA in 17 road starts. His career record on the road is 50-23, and he’s 72-30 overall since the start of the 2020 season.

Up next

Yankees rookie RHP Will Warren (8-7, 4.44 ERA) makes his 32nd start of the season on Friday night against Orioles LHP Trevor Rogers (8-2, 1.43).

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

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