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THE BEST RED SOX TEAM EVAH! ...
David Price stays on a roll
while beating the
Rays
August 18, 2018
...
David Price obviously
has had his shaky moments with the Red
Sox, but the
lefty is on some kind of run right now. He’s more comfortable than
ever going to his secondaries rather than just trying to pound his
fastball around the edges of the zone. The results have been
fantastic, and he just gave up one big home run in this game but
otherwise shutting down his former team. That performance was more
than enough to win thanks to a huge early-game surge from the Red Sox
offense.
The veteran southpaw has
been lights out of late, and that continued in a big way against his former
team. Price once again did a nice job of mixing in all of his pitches, and while
there were a few tough stretches here and there for the most part he was
fantastic.
In the top half of the
first, it actually seemed like the Rays might
be able to get to Price. The game started with a Xander
Bogaerts error followed
by a single to put two on with nobody out. Price got out of the jam from there,
though, getting a pop out, a strikeout and a ground out.
After that tough first
inning that saw his pitch count get around 20, Price settled into a major groove
for a few innings. After the single in that first inning, in fact, the lefty
retired ten in a row to take him into the top of the fourth with one out. There,
he got into a bit more trouble. Tommy
Pham drew a walk and C.J.
Cron singled to once
again put two on, this time with one out. Fortunately, Pham was caught sleeping
at second base as he was deked on a fly ball to left field and subsequently
doubled up to end the inning. Similarly, Price would strand two in the fifth to
maintain his shutout.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox
offense got off to a scorching start against Tyler
Glasnow. After Price
kept the Rays off the board in the top half, the Sox offense made sure to get
him some support. Andrew
Benintendi started the
rally with a double into the left-field corner, and Moreland followed
that up with a double of his own to put the Sox up 1-0 in the blink of an eye.
The Sox would then steal a couple of bases and draw three straight walks to
give Brock
Holt a bases loaded
situation with a 2-0 lead. It seemed the utility man may have grounded into a
double play, but Tampa Bay first baseman Jake
Bauers’ throw to second
ended up in left field, resulting in two more runs and no more outs. That would
bring Sandy León up with two on and one out, but the Red Sox struck with their
dumbest baserunning of the year. Ian
Kinsler and Brock
Holt attempted a double
steal, but Glasnow hadn’t
started his motion yet and they were caught in a double play on a double steal
attempt.
Following that four-run
first inning, the Glasnow started to settle into a groove and the Red Sox
offense saw their next five hitters go down. J.D.
Martinez made sure that
would end, and with two outs in the third he got a middle-middle fastball. He
did what he does with middle-middle fastballs, launching it into the Red Sox
bullpen for his 38th homer of the year and giving the Red Sox a 5-0 lead.
So, from here we
fast-forward to the top of the sixth with that same score holding. At this
point, Price was starting to lose his command a bit. That inning started with a
walk to Bauers,
and after getting the first out of the inning Price settled in to face Cron.
This matchup did not go well, as the lefty threw a cutter that just stayed flat
in the middle of the zone and Cron demolished it
out over everything in left field. Suddenly, it was just a three-run game.
The southpaw came back out
for the top of the seventh with the same 5-2 lead, and he started things off by
immediately allowing a double to Kevin Kiermaier. No worries, though, because David
Price is good. He got a
pair of strikeouts and a soft line out to strand the runner at second and hold
the three-run lead.
The eighth belonged to Ryan
Brasier, and he’d toss
a 1-2-3 inning. That would bring Craig
Kimbrel out for the
ninth, and he got his own 1-2-3 inning. The Red Sox bullpen closed out the game
without a hitch. |
