TORONTO — There is a joy David Price pitches with that is infectious. Sure, being blessed with an electric arm, steadfast durability and a relentless tenacity gives the ace left-hander ample reason to be happy on the mound. Dude’s got more than enough game. But not every athlete with his physical gifts has fun the way he does, a trait evident even when he shifts into competitive mode.
Take the sixth inning of Saturday’s 5-1 Toronto Blue Jays victory over the Baltimore Orioles, career win No. 100 for Price, when Manny Machado led off the frame by smoking a 96 mph fastball right back to the mound. Price flicked his glove up just as the liner was about to whiz by him, took a deep breath and flashed his trademark grin, relieved about both the out and his safety.
“If I don’t catch it, it’s probably a double off the wall,” he quipped.
He walked around the mound laughing, looked at Ryan Goins and said, “that’s how you do it right there,” before collecting himself and getting back to work, making sure to enjoy the moment.
“This is the same game I’ve loved ever since I was a little kid and if I don’t go out there and have fun with it, nothing is ever going to be good enough,” said Price. “You’ve got to be able to go out there and live in the moment, have fun because you never know you’re when you’re going to get to go back out there and do it again, so you’ve got to have fun out there.”
More often than not, his teammates do, too.
The Blue Jays certainly enjoyed the seven innings of three-hit, eight-strikeout ball Price gave them against the Orioles, precisely the type of rebound outing they were looking for after Friday night’s 10-2 drubbing, their first loss by more than three runs since an 8-3 setback to Detroit on July 4.
Price also pitched that game — for the Tigers.
Once again he was boss on the regular, before a sellout crowd of 46,373 on a sun-kissed afternoon, shutting the Orioles out through the first six frames before a Caleb Joseph grounder snuck past Troy Tulowitzki and cashed in a leadoff walk to Chris Davis in the seventh, eating into a 5-0 Blue Jays lead.
Price proceeded to strikeout Junior Lake and Paul Janish to end the frame, although he was at his best during a nine-pitch duel with Adam Jones in the sixth, catching the all-star centre-fielder looking with a 91 mph cutter to end the frame.
“He has fun when he’s out there,” said manager John Gibbons. “But when he’s in the dugout or when he goes underneath between innings, he doesn’t say a whole lot, he just sits there and waits to take the field again. He enjoys the competition. A perfect example of that was the Adam Jones at-bat, Adam’s another guy that loves the battles and those two were going at it pretty hard. As a coach or manager, even as a fan, you love to watch those things like that, because you’ve got to have fun out here. He’s very serious, he’s all business, but he enjoys himself.”
Aaron Sanchez took over in the eighth and Brett Cecil worked the ninth — extending his scoreless streak to a career-best 21 games — to lock down Price’s fifth victory in seven starts for the Blue Jays, along with the milestone win.
“That’s awesome, it’s been parts of seven seasons to get here,” said Price. “There have been a lot of good games and I’m pumped with everyone I get.”
The Blue Jays also moved 1.5 games up on the New York Yankees, 3-2 losers to the Tampa Bay Rays, atop the AL East.
Jose Bautista’s solo shot in the first and ground-rule RBI double in the third paced the offence, which enjoyed a death-by-paper-cut kind of afternoon against Mike Wright, who was hit hard the last time he faced the Blue Jays but survived deeper this time out.
They put up single runs in the first, third and fourth innings, positioning themselves for more in the latter two frames, but failing to deliver the big blow they’re accustomed to, while tacking on another pair in the fifth to put the game out of reach.
“[Wright] is tall, he’s a little deceptive because the ball is coming in on pretty steep angle and he throws hard,” said Bautista. “For pitchers like that, mostly two pitch-guys, guy’s got to locate. Last time he wasn’t, today he was, so he did better this time but we were able to get enough to come up with a win because David pitched a hell of a game.”
Ben Revere’s RBI single in the fourth made it 3-0 while Russell Martin’s run-scoring groundout and Ryan Goins’ run-scoring, ground-rule double made it a 5-0 contest in the fifth.
One of the stranger ejections the Blue Jays have had in recent memory came in the sixth, when Bautista was frustrated by a swing call on a check swing before striking out to end the frame. Bautista was clearly unhappy on his way back to the dugout, had a brief discussion with home plate umpire Tim Timmons, who proceeded to stare at the all-star right-fielder all the way into the dugout.
Infielder Cliff Pennington then stepped in front of Bautista, who was getting ready to take the field, and the umpire to block his field of vision, politely telling Timmons that he didn’t need to be looking into the Blue Jays dugout. Timmons told Pennington to be quiet, and when Pennington again urged the umpire to look elsewhere, he was ejected.
No matter, as it usually does when Price is on the mound, all ended well, and the good times didn’t belong to the pitcher alone.