Price bounces back
After poor start(s), helps Sox nab 10th
It did not take long for David Price to give the home crowd something to boo last night.
But by the end of his 62⁄3 innings of imperfect but satisfactory work, that same crowd sang Price off the field with applause.
A grand slam by Mookie Betts on the 13th pitch of a fourth-inning at-bat might have been the moment of the year, and Price redeemed himself after two straight alarming outings as the Red Sox soared to an electrifying 6-4 win at Fenway Park.
They’ve won 10 straight and are now 37 games over .500 (66-29) for the first time since 1949.
“I think the city is starting to like this team,” said manager Alex Cora.
As quiet and unsettled as things felt in the first inning, when Price served up a two-run homer to Teoscar Hernandez and then stood dejected on the mound with his back to the plate during a steady course of booing, the night turned into a party in the fourth thanks to Betts.
The MVP candidate squared off against J.A. Happ, the Blue Jays lefty who has a knack for shutting down the Red Sox.
The rally began with a one-out single by Xander Bogaerts. Brock Holt then reached on a mistake at second base, where the Blue Jays missed a force play (confirmed with replay review), and gave the Sox an extra out. Eduardo Nunez legged out an infield single to load the bases, Sandy Leon drove in a run with a groundout and Happ No. 9 hitter Jackie Bradley Jr., to get to Betts with two outs.
Betts fell behind 1-2, then hit six consecutive foul balls, took a ball, fouled another one, took another ball to push the count full and finally hammered one over the Green Monster for a nodoubt grand slam.
“I think he was just getting tired,” Betts said of Happ. “I mean he threw (46) pitches (in the inning). As a team we did great wearing him down.”
After the blast, Betts flipped his bat, jumped into the air and turned his body around to face the Fenway crowd. His fists pumped, his feet shuffled and the noise from the crowd was deafening. Betts was so excited he nearly tripped on his way to first base.
“Just looking at the dugout, excited, a good time to show some emotion,” Betts said. “Almost went down. Had to depend on my athletic ability and it came through that time.”
With Price now holding a 5-2 lead, the park seemed to grow nervous as the Jays went back to work in the fifth. It wasn’t a clean inning and it took 19 pitches, but Price escaped without damage in one of the most important shutdown innings of the season.
“That was a big moment,” Price said. “It’s the most excited I’ve seen Mookie on a baseball field.”
Betts added another RBI in the seventh, and though Price served up a second home run before departing, he earned his 10th win of the season and snapped a streak of two disastrous outings in which he allowed 12 total runs.
“David was outstanding,” Cora said. “I loved the use of the changeup back to back. We haven’t seen that in a while. He was talking about making adjustments and finding stuff up, that was good.”
It was his final start of the first half and he finished with a 4.42 ERA. The next time he takes the ball will be the Sox’ first game after the All-Star break as they work toward not just another ticket to the playoffs, but a division title and a sense of confidence they seemed to lack in recent years.
The next time Price pitches, one eye will stay on him, but one will drift to October.