Price seeking redemption in unexpected role: Bullpen ace
BALTIMORE — Some seven months later, David Price can still remember how good he felt when he sho wed up at B oston’s spring training camp in Fort Myers, Florida, his prized left arm in pristine condition, his second season on a seven-year, $217 million deal with the Red Sox containing all the makings of something special.
But the good vibes lasted all of two weeks. The first twinge of elbow soreness in late February, in hindsight, was the portentous start of a hellish journey that saw insult added to injury, with Price making just 11 starts, clashing with the Boston media and becoming a favorite punching bag for Red Sox fans during a season full of inconsistency and intrigue.
“Going into spring training feeling as good as I did, and then for everything to happen the way it’s hap- pened, has definitely been tough,” Price, 32, said Monday in the visitors’ club- house at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
“I’ve dealt with it. I’ve gotten through it,” he said. “Most people would’ve been at the house months ago. I didn’t pack it in. Does it feel good? No. [But] I still pitched. If people don’t appreciate that, or can’t, so be it.”
As the regular season winds down, with the Red Sox mere days away from clinching a playoff spot, Price is in a position he never would have imagined back in February — relegated to the bullpen for the rest of 2017, however far t heRedSoxgo.
The move, which the team made last week, was an acknowledgment that Price’s latest elbow-related layoff, which began July 22, did not afford enough time to build up his stamina in time to start in October.
When management sat him down and told Price of their plans for him, he immediately made it known t hathestronglydis- agreed.
“They knew what I wanted to do. I definitely want- ed to start,” he said. The team’s logic, however, was difficult to deny. “It would have been tough to build me back up at that point. I get it.”
Price’s first regular-season relief outing in seven years, a dominant twoinning stint Sunday at Tampa Bay, was enough to make the Red Sox believe they might have just stumbleduponthesortofmultiinning bul lpenacewhohas pro ven to be a difference- maker in recent Octobers, and for Price to believe he can redeem his rocky 2017 with one brilliant month on baseball’s biggest stage.
“I’ll be able to help — maybe not as much as I would as a starter, I feel like, but t hat t ime of season, I know how big that is, to have a guy who can [pitch in that role],” Price said.“IfwemakeittoOctober and I throw the ball extremely w ell coming out of the ‘pen, it doesn’t matter that I wasn’t a starter. I just want to help these guys win.”
The Red Sox, in the two weeks or so that are left in the regular season, are still trying to ease Price into the new role. He won’t be pitching on back-to-back days initially, and the team will keep close w atch on his pitchcounts. But on Monday, just 24 hours after throwing 21 pitches at Tampa Bay and touching 95 mph with his fastball, he said his arm felt great.
“I’ve always been a guy who h asn’t had [next-day] soreness,” he said. “I’ve never had problems with my arm. When I pitch, the next day, I feel like I can pitch that day. I’ve always told my managers that. When I see them the next day, I’m like, ‘I’m good.’ This is still a trial-and-error process, too. We don’t know how it’s going to respond, but when I woke up this morning I felt good.”