David Price on what’s changed in his recent postseason success: ‘I have’
"It's paid off."
It could’ve had a very different ending for David Price and the Red Sox in Wednesday night’s Game 2 World Series win at Fenway Park. The margins were thin.
Looking around the bases during the 4th inning, Price saw Dodgers virtually everywhere he looked. With the bases loaded and no outs, Los Angeles had the Boston left-hander where it wanted him.
“We had him on the ropes,” said Dodger manager Dave Roberts afterward. Yet Price calmly worked to limit the damage, surrendering just two runs, and avoiding what Roberts labeled the “big hit” that could’ve broken the game open for LA.
From the depths of his widely discussed postseason struggles, Price has rebounded to win two straight decisions. This time, on baseball’s biggest stage, he pitched six relatively quiet innings, allowing just the two runs.
He combined with the Boston bullpen for a formidable final 16 outs:
The @RedSox retired the final 16 Dodgers hitters of the game tonight.
That’s the longest streak by an AL team to end a #WorldSeries game since Don Larsen retired all 27 in his perfect game in 1956.#DoDamage
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) October 25, 2018
When asked what’s changed in his last two starts, Price had a simple answer.
“I have,” he said. “I take a lot of pride in being able to evolve from pitch to pitch, or from game to game, whatever it is. Being able to make adjustments on the fly, it’s paid off.”
He also credited his teammates, who came back to score three runs in the bottom of the 5th, giving Price and the Red Sox bullpen all the run support it needed in a 4-2 win.
“These guys picked me up, just like they have all year long,” said Price. “That was huge.”
Asked by Fox Sports reporter Ken Rosenthal how he feels now that he’s turned around his longtime postseason losing streak, Price acknowledged the positives, but he remained focused on the longterm goal.
“It feels good. It definitely feels good, but like I said before the playoffs happened: I’d rather go winless and have us win the World Series than have me go 4, 5-0 and we lose. We’re playing good baseball right now, that’s a very good team over there, so we need to go to LA and not make it come back to Boston.”
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