Playoff hurdle in mind
Price knows postseason means scrutiny
FORT MYERS — If you’re looking for a sliver of optimism that David Price is taking a fresh new approach to challenging his postseason demons, consider this: The Red Sox lefty no longer counts his relief outings as proof he can win a playoff game.
“Hopefully, we’ll get to the playoffs and good things will happen, and I’ll win a game, as a starter,” Price said before yesterday’s workout at Fenway South. “But I gotta dominate, though. I can’t go out there and go seven and give up six, or four. That’s not good enough.” As a starter.
For those of you who don’t understand the significance of those three little words, it’s probably because you’ve erased the Sox’ three-game bellyflop against the Cleveland Indians in last fall’s Division Series showdown.
The Sox were done, Tom Brady was back, and that was that for the 2016 Red Sox.
But to recap: Price, the Game 2 starter, was tagged for five runs in 31⁄ innings 3 in a 6-0 loss. After, when he was inevitably quizzed about his ongoing quest to win a postseason game, Price said, “I’ve got two wins in the playoffs, just not as a starter.”
And that’s true. Pitching two-thirds of an inning in Game 2 of the 2008 American League Championship Series, Price picked up a “W” in the Tampa Bay Rays’ 9-8 victory over the Red Sox. Pitching in relief for Toronto in Game 4 of the 2015 Division Series, he allowed three runs on six hits in three innings but got the win as the Blue Jays emerged with an 8-4 victory over the Texas Rangers.
It’s Price’s record as a starter — with Tampa Bay, with Detroit, with Toronto, with Boston — that’s the issue. He has made nine postseason starts. He’s 0-8 with a 5.74 ERA. His teams have lost all nine of those starts.
Feel free to jump in here and decry the injustice of dragging Price’s postseason record into a spring training discussion. Fair point, except for this: Price can win 20 games this season — he just might — and the postseason record will still be every Sox fan’s nagging concern.
So let’s get it out in the open. And let’s celebrate, for now, Price’s willingness to toss out the two relief wins. I should point out that the conversation with Price was a sort of followup to the aftermath of last fall’s three-game sweep by the Indians, when I asked the veteran lefty if he had considered working with a sports psychologist.
“I’ve talked to many of those guys,” Price said in the October interview. “It’s something we did at Vanderbilt. We’ve had them on every team I’ve been on in the big leagues.”
Returning to that topic yesterday, Price said, “It’s nothing that I addressed. I’m not mentally weak. That’s not a place where I struggle. That’s something I’ve always done a really good job at, the mental side of baseball. No, that’s not something I addressed in the offseason.”
During his first season with the Sox, Price did work with Bob Tewksbury, a former major league pitcher who was the club’s mental-skills coach. Tewksbury is no longer with the team. Price said he consults with Laz Gutierrez, who worked in the Red Sox farm system as a mental-skills coach, a role he will assume at the big league level this season.
“I talk to our sports guy all the time,” Price said. “It’s something I do every year.”
And he’s not worried about anything said or written about his postseason record.
“Oh, that’s what’s always written so it doesn’t matter,” he said. “That’s not something I can change until we get there, if we get there. I’ll do everything in my power to help us get there. And hopefully turn it around.”
As for dropping the two relief victories from the discussion, it’s possible Price is doing this for no other reason than because it didn’t play well when he brought it up last October.
Whatever the reason, whether he’s been guided by a sports psychologist, a mental-skills coach, his neighborhood butcher or his own common sense, Price is off to a good start.