Red Sox - 010 010 000 - 2 6 0 Yankees - 001 321 01x - 8 11 1Facing a weakened Yankees lineup - no Alex Rodriguez, no Jacoby Ellsbury, no Brian McCann - David Price (4.2-7-6-3-4, 104) could not make it through even five innings. Price's ERA for the season, through seven starts, is now 6.75. (One nice thing, though; NESN's Dave O'Brien can finally stop exclaiming that Price is "unbeaten" this season. However, I fear O'Brien will continue to point glowingly to Price's 4-1 record, and ignore his ghastly ERA.)
In the fourth and fifth innings, seven of Price's 12 batters reached base, and five of them scored. The Red Sox were held in check all afternoon by Nathan Eovaldi (8-6-2-0-6, 107).
Price faced the minimum six batters through the first two innings, but began having trouble in the third with the bottom of the New York lineup. Chase Headley lined a single to right. After a sacrifice bunt put Headley on second, he scored on Austin Romine's double to right-center. That tied the game at 1-1, Boston having previously scored on Hanley Ramirez's HBP, a groundout, and Brock Holt's single.
Starlin Castro and Mark Teixeira began the fourth inning with singles. Price struck out Carlos Beltran and appeared to have struck out Dustin Ackley on a 2-2 pitch. However, Price did not get the call from home plate umpire Chris Conroy, and walked Ackley with his full-count pitch, loading the bases. Headley flied to Mookie Betts in short right, and the runner at third held. Price got ahead of Didi Gregorius 0-2 and it looked like he would escape the jam. But Gregorius then poked a double into the right field corner, and all three runners scored.
Jackie Bradley's solo home run in the top of the fifth cut the Yankees' lead to 4-2.
Price walked both Aaron Hicks and Castro with one out in the fifth. Price fanned Teixeira for the second out, but gave up a two-run double to Beltran. That pushed New York's lead to 6-2. The Yankees scored single runs against Matt Barnes in the sixth and Sean O'Sullivan in the eighth.
Boston never mounted anything approaching a threat against Eovaldi. Ramirez reached second on an infield single and throwing error, but there was already two outs, and Travis Shaw struck out. A leadoff single from Xander Bogaerts in the sixth was wiped out on a double play by David Ortiz. The Red Sox were retired in order in the seventh, eighth, and ninth.
Betts, RFUmpiring Note: Chris Conroy will be fucking things up behind the plate this afternoon.
Pedroia, 2B
Bogaerts, SS
Ortiz, DH
Ramirez, 1B
Shaw, 3B
Holt, LF
Bradley, CF
Vazquez, C
At this point, I'd be okay with never hearing the term "xFIP" again (at least as it relates to David Price). I think Price could end the season with a 6+ ERA and having averaged 5 innings per start, and there would still be people insisting he was the best pitcher in the league.
ReplyDeleteI came here to post the following from MLBTradeRumors, but Max kind of beat me to it:
ReplyDelete"Even with his velocity-related troubles, Price has still put up an 11.54 K/9, 2.93 FIP and 2.94 xFIP, indicating that a turnaround could be on the way."
It sounds ridiculous, but there's a story making the rounds that indicates perhaps Price has fixed a glaring mechanical issue, thanks to Dustin Pedroia.
ReplyDeleteSearch out the Boston Herald article titled "David Price thinks he has a fix with Dustin Pedroia's advice."
Here's a David Price quote from the end: "I’ll fix that (mechanical flaw) tomorrow and hopefully Thursday I’ll go out there and I’ll be back to my normal self."