G85: Yankees 11, Red Sox 1

Red Sox - 000 000 001 -  1  4  0
Yankees - 420 300 02x - 11 16  0 

There was a gun fight in the Bronx on Sunday night - and David Price brought a peashooter.

Price (3.1-9-8-0-3, 71) became the fourth Red Sox pitcher in history to allow five home runs in a game to the Yankees. Previously in his 11-year career, the most long balls Price had been tagged for was three. He tied that mark tonight after facing only 10 batters. His eight earned runs allowed tied a career-worst.

Aaron Hicks led the pinstriped dong parade with three circuit blasts, with Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres, and Kyle Higashioka each hitting one. Higashioka's fourth-inning shot to left field was his first major league hit, and it allowed him to shed the 0-for-22 collar he had been wearing.

Luis Severino was expected to be on his game - and he was (6.2-2-0-3-6, 99) - so Price knew he had to stifle the Yankees' bats. He failed utterly. His second batter of the game (Judge) crushed a 2-2 pitch over the wall in center. Price then went to a 2-1 count on Giancarlo Stanton. Three pitches later, it was 4-0. Stanton singled, Didi Gregorius doubled, and Torres homered.

Brett Gardner singled with one out in the second and Hicks homered to right-center. 6-0. Price then retired five of the next six batters, but Higashioka led off the fourth with a solo shot and Hicks hit his second dong one out later. And that was it for Price.

Greg Joyce, Post:

When he was finally put out of his misery and lifted by manager Alex Cora ... Price received a standing ovation from the jeering crowd at Yankee Stadium, perhaps the only place he'll be so beloved any time soon.

Price has started five games for the Red Sox in the Bronx. The Yankees have batted .409 in those games and Boston has lost all five.

Mike Vaccaro, Post:

In the vernacular of the old "Batman" TV series:

BAM! — The Yankees kneecapped the Sox behind CC Sabathia Friday, 8-1.

BONK! — The Red Sox stomped Sonny Gray and Chris Sale suffocated the Yankees Saturday, 11-0.

KAPOW! — The Yankees slaughtered David Price, and Luis Severino was his usual genius self against the Sox in an 11-1 series-clincher Sunday. ...

[The last game] was as ugly as it was predictable ... given the fact that since [Price] signed his seven-year, $217 million contract with the Red Sox prior to the 2016 season he has been little more than a glorified batting-practice pitcher against the Yankees. ...

The teams will take a breather from each other for a good month, go back to filleting the rest of the sport while they eye each other carefully. ...

What we took away from this series was simple and it was visceral: both teams can pound the baseball to frightening effect. Both teams have aces — Sale and Severino — who will help making losing streaks all but impossible on either side. The Yankees took two of three this weekend, and have won five of the first nine, but the teams are as closely (and as intriguingly) matched as the records hint that they should be.

David Price / Luis Severino

Betts, RF
Benintendi, LF
Martinez, DH
Moreland, 1B
Bogaerts, SS
Devers, 3B
Holt, 2B
Vazquez, C
Bradley, CF

David Price has not allowed more than three runs in any of his last nine starts (2.72 ERA), but a few members of the media are (surprise!) stirring the pot, wondering if Price can pitch well tonight against the Yankees.

Greg A. Bedard, Boston Sports Journal:

The first time Price faced the Yankees this season, he exited after one inning pitched with numbness in his hand due to cold weather and four earned runs on April 11. Price was scratched from his next start against the Yankees ... in what later became the infamous Fortnite episode. ...

Since joining the Sox in 2016, Price is 2-4 in seven starts against the Yankees with a 7.28 ERA. He's allowed 53 hits in 37.1 innings against the Pinstripers. ...

[I]f Price goes out and struggles against the Yankees, the pressure he's already not happy with is only going to escalate.

John Tomase, WEEI:

Since joining the Red Sox ... Price is 2-5 with a ghastly 7.42 ERA in eight starts vs. the Bombers. He has allowed at least six runs in half of them ...

Price's efforts have resulted in a litany of failure, including a one-inning, four-run outing this April that played a direct role in Price's petulant response on Tuesday night. ...

He has since made numerous sarcastic, sneering references to how soft he is ... If he delivers another stinker on Sunday, he'll merely confirm the worst suspicions of his harshest critics.

Outside of a loss to [Cleveland] in the 2016 playoffs, it's fair to say Sunday night marks the biggest start of Price's Red Sox career.

Ryan Hannable, WEEI:

[A]sked about his next start ... [Price] took it as a chance to make another sarcastic remark.

"I don't think I'll be able to go, so I don't think so," he said with a smirk. ... "Fortnite."

Appearing on The Jim Rome Show Wednesday, Price was asked about ... why he's been so sarcastic when speaking to the media this season.

"I guess it is just having a personality," he said. "That is all you're trying to do, just have fun with it and if it is viewed the wrong way or words get twisted around, so be it. You can't control what is said and all that, so you just go out there and have fun."

Alex Reimer, WEEI:

Nobody on this planet could possibly find David Price's bone-dry sarcasm amusing or enjoyable. He is joyless, not even offering a faint smirk when begins his passive-aggressive routine. ...

It's apparent Price has dropped any pretense that he can even tolerate Boston. He loathes the fans who cheer him and beat writers who defend him. So now, he's not even pretending to play along. ...

Price just doesn't like anybody. ... He's bitter and angry about Boston, because people criticize him on social media and the radio. ...

[Is Price] the most bitter man who's ever been guaranteed $217 million?

Bedard and Tomase offer different stats for Price's starts for Boston against the Yankees. For the record, Tomase is right and Bedard is wrong. (Bedard failed to include Price's start on September 27, 2016.)

The Yankees are 15-2 in Severino's 17 starts and he has a 2.10 ERA.

Back in May, the Globe's Nick Cafardo dubbed Luis Severino "the ace of aces".

But Severino has pitched poorly against the Red Sox this season. On April 10 at Fenway Park, he gave up five runs on eight hits in five innings as Boston won 14-1. On May 8 at Yankee Stadium, he gave up two runs in six innings and struck out 11. The Yankees won 3-2.

Severino's 2018 stats:

               GS    IP     H   R  ER  BB    K    ERA    WHIP
vs Red Sox      2    11    14   7   7   3   17   5.73   1.545
Everyone Else  15   100.2  67  20  19  23  115   1.70   0.894

Total          17   111.2  81  27  26  26  132   2.10   0.958

Severino: "I want to face any team. I'm not scared of anybody."

AL East: The Red Sox are 1 GA of the Yankees.