What Boston sports radio is saying ahead of Game 3
"Have we scheduled the parade yet?"
The Red Sox are up two games to none heading into Dodgers’ territory for Game 3 of the World Series. Here’s what Boston’s sports radio personalities are saying about their Sox ahead of tonight’s game.
The Sox’ bullpen woes are a thing of the past:
Toucher and Rich (98.5 The Sports Hub):
“Give the front office full marks. I mean, I don’t know how you looked at that bullpen. Only July 31 — I looked this up — on July 31, Joe Kelly had an ERA of 4.5 and had just finished giving up 17 runs in his previous 22 1/3 innings. And for some reason, the front office looked at that and said, ‘We’re cool, we don’t need anybody!’ Matt Barnes gave up 10 earned runs in August, and for some reason the front office looked at that and said, ‘You know what? He’s fine, too, and they’re both going to be fine when it matters.’ I don’t know how you do that, if you look and you see Kelly, Barnes, Brandon Workman, Heath Hembree, Tyler Thornburg and you think, ‘You know what? We don’t need any help. We’re going to be fine in October.’ God bless ’em, they were right. I don’t know what they say, but it worked.”
Felger and Mazz (98.5 The Sports Hub): “To me, that game [Wednesday] night… was one of the best pitched postseason games I’ve ever seen them have. And I’m talking about the whole lot of them — from the starter, the very first pitch, through the closer and the very last pitch of the game… And then the bullpen guys? I told you, I looked this up this morning when I read it. In the last three innings of [Game 2], Joe Kelly, Nathan Eovaldi, Craig Kimbrel. First of all: 33 pitches, 24 strikes. This is the same Red Sox bullpen that pitched like it was blindfolded for half the season. 33 pitches, 24 strikes. That means 11 pitches an inning to get through there. That’s unbelievably efficient, first of all. And in terms of your strike percentage? Off the charts. Then, I went back and counted 19 fastballs. Do you know what the velocities were? … Average velocity [was] 98.5 miles per hour. The Sports Hub miles per hour. 98.5 miles per hour for the last three innings. Thank you, go back to the dugout, have a nice night, and see you in L.A. … I loved that.”
David Price’s road to redemption:
“It got to the point where there were so many bad David Price starts that, I will raise my hand, I was one of the guys that said ‘He’s not going to be able to do it.’… Think about even a month ago, or right after than Yankees start. How about that Yankees start he had, where he went an inning and two-thirds. He started a game, was yanked out of the game in the second inning, everybody was losing their minds like, ‘What a disaster this guy is, he’s going to opt out.’ And then you just fast forward a couple of weeks and he’s winning a World Series game at Fenway Park.”
Zolak and Bertrand (98.5 The Sports Hub): “If things go south in Los Angeles and this becomes a Series again, and [Price] gets a big, pressure-filled start and blows it? Okay, then we have to reassess. But he’s done so much, I don’t know if it can be undone by one bad start later on in the Series… If they win [Friday] and they are with a lead in Game 4, you could see David Price again and he could be masterful again. And he could help you win the World Series more than he already has. He is rewriting his script here in Boston.”
Kirk and Callahan: “[David Price] doesn’t have any good hitters to pitch to… It’s an OK lineup, but it’s the National League. Compared to the Yankees and the Astros, they’re not as good, so it’s not as scary of a lineup. Secondly, the monkey’s off his back. The Yankees are the thing that scares him. Got past them, beat the Astros in the clutch, and as we’ve said many, many times: really good players who struggle in the clutch or in the postseason generally get over it in time. It happens. We’ve gone through A-Rod, Peyton Manning, Phil Mickelson, you name it. Those guys who are really, really good, supremely talented guys. Get over it. Price has gotten over it.”
Toucher and Rich: “Operation Reputation Redemption is almost complete for David Price… We’ve gone past the ridiculous and entered the absurd with the Boston Red Sox. Almost every element that was destined to fail has now been a success. Every Achilles heel is now a secret weapon, no one came into the postseason with more doubts than David Price, who [Wednesday] night, killed it. In Boston sports, you win.”
Fire up the duck boats:
Kirk and Callahan (93.7 WEEI):
“Let’s be honest, this is not a competitive Series. The Red Sox are far superior. They just beat two better teams, neither of which went the distance against them. Neither of them really threatened [the Red Sox]. They rolled over the Yankees, the third best team in Major League Baseball. They rolled over the Astros, the second best team in MLB. This is a formality. The National League is not as good as the American League and certainly the Dodgers — the 92-win Dodgers who struggled to get past the Brewers — are not a threat.”
“You’re right, it’s going to be five games like many of us predicted, maybe four at this point. I don’t know if anyone’s disappointed if they had tickets to Game 6 or Game 7 and thought they were going to sell them or thought they were going to be there… But there will be no Game 6 or Game 7. Next time you see your heroes will be in the duck boat parade.”
Toucher and Rich: “[The World Series] is almost over. All it takes is two more games, that’s what it’s going to be and then the Red Sox are going to be World Series Champs once again… Have we scheduled the parade yet?”
