NEW YORK – Jokingly, David Price says he’s forgotten about his past two outings against the New York Yankees. But of course he remembers, right down to the fine details he remembers.
“Two starts ago I gave up nine straight hits, nine straight hitters got a hit,” the ace left-hander told a throng of media Friday ahead of his start Saturday for the Toronto Blue Jays against the AL East leaders.
“Nobody walked, nobody lined out. Nine straight. Whoever’s throwing BP for the Yankees today won’t give up nine straight, and he’s throwing BP. That was part of it. And then this year, eight runs in two and a third this year in Detroit. I’ve given up more runs than I’ve gotten outs against the Yankees in my last two starts. I’m going to throw the ball better (Saturday).
“I have the utmost confidence in myself to go out there and throw the ball the way I’m capable of throwing it.”
The Blue Jays are counting on him to improve on the 10-7 record and 4.41 ERA he has in 27 career games, all but one a start, against New York.
Price is also slated to pitch next Friday’s series opener at home against the Yankees and could face them twice more down the line, too, so figuring things out matters.
Things went off the rails dramatically for him Aug. 27, 2014, when he allowed eight runs on 12 hits and a walk in two-plus innings of work.
His third inning, which lasted 25 pitches, went like this: Jacoby Ellsbury single, Derek Jeter double, Martin Prado single, Mark Teixiera double, Carlos Beltran single, Brian McCann single, Chase Headley single, Brett Gardner single, and Francisco Cervelli single.
This past April 22, the Yankees got him again for eight runs on 10 hits and three walks in 2.1 innings.
Price isn’t stressing about it.
“That’s baseball man, it’s not going to be the last bad start of my career,” he said. “If it is, then I’m probably not going to be pitching for very much longer. It’s easy for me to brush those off.”
Carrying baggage into an outing, especially in games that carry a little more weight, is never a good idea, which is why Price says rather than trying to build up the current series with the Yankees, the Blue Jays are better off trying to enjoy things.
“If you apply more pressure than is already going to be applied to you, that’s going to make it extremely tough for you to go out there and do your job,” he explained. “For me, if you go out there and have fun in this game, you’ll be OK with the results, good or bad, you know you gave it everything you’ve got.
“We’re not going to lose because of lack of preparation, or lack of work, because this team absolutely works and they’re very well prepared. You’ve got to go out there and have fun and hopefully we’ll get the same results that we have the week I’ve been here.”
