TORONTO – He helped bring a division title to Toronto and toys, too: Scooters for his teammates, along with customized bathrobes.
Tampa Bay, Detroit, Toronto… It has never mattered. Wherever David Price has hung his hat and for however long he’s been there, he is a welcomed guest when he returns.
One other thing hasn’t changed: His 15-game, three-month stint with the Blue Jays in 2015 hasn’t changed his luck against the club.
He didn’t get credit for the win on Sunday, but neither did he lose; he gave up a moon-shot to Jose Bautista, saw R.A. Dickey throw five no-hit innings against him, but the Red Sox won 5-3 in 11 innings when the Blue Jays once again ran out of effective relief pitching, or at least the type of relief that can go toe-to-toe with the best offence in the American League.
Price is 17-2 lifetime against the Blue Jays – still 7-0 as an opponent at the Rogers Centre – with a 2.43 earned run average.
“I benefitted from good defensive plays, and whether you feel good or not you have to have good things happen out there on the field and for me that’s kind of been the story against the Blue Jays,” said Price, who matched a season-low with just three strikeouts and had three walks in his first game back in Toronto since being acquired at the trade deadline. “To me, I haven’t thrown the ball as well as what my record indicates against those guys. Good things happen to me whenever I face them.”
Price, of course, left the Blue Jays as a free agent at a time when the franchise’s first trip to the post-season since 1993 made all things seem possible – including the notion that ownership would match the seven-year, $217-million deal doled out by the Red Sox or that Price was so in love with everything here that all the team had to do was make an offer and he’d sign, especially if Alex Anthopoulos were still the general manager.
It was silliness, and even Anthopoulos had admitted the only thing he could say for certain is that he would have spoken to ownership about at least making an offer that wouldn’t have been enough.
Price has already faced the Blue Jays in 2016, scattering six hits over seven innings and striking out nine in a 4-2 win at Fenway Park on April 16.
There was polite applause during the announcement of lineups in the pre-game, and a strange sort of ripple of recognition or perhaps expectation when Bautista stepped into the batter’s box to face Price in the bottom of the first inning, but there was little by-play beyond that.
Jays fans thank you for the applause when I came out of the game…if you would have boo’d I would have understood but cheers meant a lot
— David Price (@DAVIDprice24) May 29, 2016
Price quickly touched the bill of his cap as he walked off the mound with one out in the seventh inning and Ezequiel Carrera on second with many in the sell-out crowd standing and politely applauding. He and Kevin Pillar seemed to be sharing a laugh at the end of the sixth when the Blue Jays centre-fielder lined out to right field. Pillar pulled up around first base and walked toward Price as he left the mound, smiling as he took off his arm pad and batting gloves. Price tapped his upper chest as he usually does, skipping backwards before starting his run to the dugout.
“I told him, ‘That should have been a homer,’” Price said. “He asked me where at and I said ‘Here, without the wind blowing in.’ I thought he hit it really well. I was happy it was caught, but he’s a good friend.”
Much was made of how the Kansas City Royals advanced scouts picked apart Price’s delivery ahead of the American League Championship Series. Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated detailed it in a memorable piece: They’d noticed he took an extra breath before delivering his change-up, and that the position of Price’s right foot when he started his delivery with a man on first base effectively made it impossible for him to throw to first. Those two facts explained how his now-infamous seventh inning in Game 2 unravelled on Price.
Asked to re-visit the series before Sunday’s game, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons noted that Price believed he was tipping pitches long before then: That he had often asked Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker to go through video with him. The Jays heard about “the breathing thing,” as Gibbons called it, but he didn’t go into details.
Asked whether video work ahead of the game revealed anything on Price, a couple of uniformed Blue Jays merely shrugged. One suggested Price seemed to be throwing his breaking pitch more often, something that Walker frequently suggested to Price down the stretch.
An entire cottage industry seems to have sprung up in baseball focusing on Price and his mechanics. Much was made this season of a video session with Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia in which Pedroia suggested Price was sometimes lowering his leg kick from previous seasons. Sunday, Red Sox television analyst Jerry Remy was all over how Price had fallen back into the habit of being lazy with his glove with a man on base, and how he’d leave it at his waist instead of bringing it up to his chin. It was noticeable on Bautista’s homer, which came on a sloppy slide step.
“I mean, I’m trying to switch it up,” said Price. “I thought Ezequiel was going to be in motion – I guessed wrong. I didn’t think it was a terrible pitch but anything moving in to Jose – well, he’s going to put a good swing on it.”
Price, whose earned run average sits at a fat 5.11, smiled when he was asked whether the focus on his mechanics was tiresome, even if it’s no surprise given the fact it seems as if he’s been part of the furniture in the American League East forever.
“I mean, I have north of a five ERA,” he said, shrugging. “So, you have to talk about something. And that’s part of it, the mechanics. I haven’t, with maybe the exception of four or five starts, thrown the ball well. And not just bad – I’m talking awful.
“So I’ve made some adjustments and feel like I’m throwing the ball the way I can now and help these guys win. And that’s what I’m here for, to help this team win every five days and so far we’ve been able to do that on most of the days I pitch.”
Price said the return to Toronto was many things, but emotional wasn’t one of them. He has kept in frequent contact with his former teammates, he said, noting that while careers are temporary things, “friendships last forever.” Which is why for David Price, returning to Toronto is more than ever a can’t-lose proposition.