Sox stretch series lead
PRICE PITCHES RED SOX PAST DODGERS 4-2 FOR 2-0 LEAD IN WORLD SERIES
From playoff flop to World Series ace in one legacy-changing October, David Price earned his second postseason victory in a row Wednesday night and delivered the Boston Red Sox their second straight World Series win.
The Red Sox left-hander pitched six innings of threehit ball, and major league RBI leader J.D. Martinez broke a fifth-inning tie with a tworun single during another two-out rally to lead Boston to a 4-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers and a 2-0 lead in the World Series.
Game 3 is Friday in Los Angeles. The Dodgers need a win to avoid an 0-3 deficit that no World Series team has ever recovered from.
The Red Sox have won 14 of their last 16 World Series games, dating to a four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004.
Not bad for a team that went 86 years without a championship before then.
And Price had battled a curse of his own.
Price had been 0-9 in his first 10 post-season starts and his team had never won a playoff game he started before this year. Boston has now won his last three starts, including the ALCS Game 5 clincher against the defending champion Astros in which he pitched six shutout innings.
So what changed for Price, who said he found something while warming up in the bullpen late in Game 4 at Houston?
“I have,” he said. “I take a lot of pride in being able to evolve from pitch to pitch or day to day or game to game. Being able to make adjustments on the fly, it’s paid off.”
On a frigid night at Fenway Park, Price held the highestscoring team in the NL hitless through three innings and retired the last seven batters he faced. He struggled only in the fourth, loading the bases with nobody out on two singles and a walk, to give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead — their first of the Series.
But the 108-win Red Sox pulled ahead, and once again they waited until there were two outs to do it.
In an uncanny stretch of clutch hitting that has been their hallmark throughout the season, the Red Sox scored all four of their runs in Game 2 with two outs, including a three-run rally in the fifth that only started after Hyun-Jin Ryu set down Ian Kinsler and Jackie Bradley Jr.
Christian Vazquez singled, Mookie Betts did the same and Andrew Benintendi worked the count full before walking to load the bases, chasing Ryu. Ryan Madson walked Steve Pearce to tie the game before Martinez, who had 130 RBIs in the regular season, dropped a soft line drive in front of right fielder Yasiel Puig to score two more and give Boston a 4-2 lead.
Price and three relievers retired the last 16 Los Angeles batters, with Craig Kimbrel closing the Dodgers down in a perfect ninth for his sixth save this post-season.
Boston’s other run came on Kinsler’s two-out single in the second. The Red Sox, who led the majors in two-out runs in the regular season, have scored 36 of their 68 runs this post-season — and nine of their 12 in the Series — with two outs.