Blues have a ‘special’ feeling in Cup Final
David Price had a milestone night and Marco Hernandez completed his long journey back to the big leagues.
Hernandez hit a key two-run double in his first major league start in over two years, Price pitched six solid innings in his 300th career start and the Boston Red Sox beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5-1 to salvage a split of their day- night doubleheader Saturday.
“That's cool,” said Price, who began his career with the Rays in 2008. “I definitely take pride in that. I was drafted 12 years ago to yesterday by the team that I threw my 300th start against, so that kind of comes full circle in that sense.”
It was Boston's first home win over the Rays this season after losing the first four meetings, including Tampa Bay's 9-2 victory in the opener.
The Rays' Mike Zunino had a single, snapping a 0-for-21 stretch. Tampa Bay's fourgame winning streak ended.
Hernandez injured his left shoulder on May 3, 2017, then missed the remainder of that season and all of 2018 recovering from surgery. He started this year on the 10-day injured list.
Price (4-2) gave up a run on five hits, matched his season high with 10 strikeouts and walked two. He's allowed three or fewer runs in eighth consecutive starts.
The Rays stranded eight and went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position.
Reliver Colin Poche took the loss in his major league debut, giving up two runs in 1 1/3 innings.
Michael Chavis' two-run Something is missing from Boston's power play.
The uninterrupted puck movement and cross-ice passes to a wide-open David Pastrnak aren't there anymore. Torey Krug isn't getting the chance to fire away from the top. Patrice Bergeron isn't dominating between the faceoff circles like before.
Boston rode its power play to a 2-1 lead in the Stanley Cup Final. Since then, the St. Louis Blues have shut out the most effective power-play unit in more than 30 years and held
TACO TIFF
Sometimes it's best not to get between a man and his taco.
Texas A&M safety Derrick Tucker was arrested on assault charges Thursday for an altercation in March
WTAW/1620-AM first reported that Tucker was in a physical altercation with another man on March 24. The police report says the two men started arguing over tacos. The victim alleges that after the initial fight was broken up, Tucker returned a few minutes later and struck him in the back of the head.
Tucker started in eight games for the Aggies as a sophomore in 2018. He had 21 tackles in 10 games. He was released from jail on $5,000 bond, WTAW reports.
No details have emerged on the nature of the taco argument. the Bruins' best players in check, too. The Blues' power play has been nothing special, but their penalty kill is a major reason why St. Louis has won two straight to earn a chance to claim the first NHL championship in franchise history at home Sunday night in Game 6.
St. Louis has gone from being the playoffs' least-penalized team through three rounds to something else entirely. The Blues are borderline undisciplined, relying on targeted toughness to beat up and disrupt the Bruins. It's working. Since allowing six power-play goals early in the final and letting the Bruins go 4-for-4 on four shots in Game 3, the Blues have made five successful penalty kills.
Suddenly Boston's most valuable weapon is quiet.
“We're staying tight to each other,” Blues penalty killer Oskar Sundqvist said. “We're not letting them pass through the seams and shoot from the top and things like that. We're making it harder on them and keeping them on the outside.”
Not just fine. If this keeps up, they could be Stanley Cup champions.
Game 3 was such an eyeopener of how good Boston's power play is that many wondered if the Bruins were just going to steamroll the Blues and win the series in five games. But Sundqvist was suspended that game and goaltender Jordan Binnington has shown serious resolve since then. Blues coach Craig Berube also has made adjustments to counter Boston coach Bruce Cassidy's special teams.
“They really like using seam passes and things like that, and I thought we were tight and doing a good job with our sticks and doing a real good job on our stand at the blue line on their breakouts and breaking plays up,” Berube said.
Boston's power play had been converting over 30% — a clip that could have been the second-highest all-time for a Cup champion — and was drawing comparisons to the New York Islanders' 1980s dynasty that featured Mike Bossy, Denis Potvin, Clark Gillies and Bryan Trottier.