BOSTON -- The very first pitching matchup featuring two No. 1 overall draft picks in postseason history went exactly how we all expected. They both got hit pretty hard. Red Sox left-hander David Price (No. 1 pick in 2007) turned in his latest meh postseason outing in Game 2 of the ALCS on Sunday night (BOS 7, HOU 5), allowing four runs in 4 2/3 innings against the Astros. He faced 23 batters and nine reached base, which is ... not great. It's not great. David Price LAD • SP • 33 2018 ALCS Game 2 vs. Astros IP 4 2/3 H 5 R 4 ER 4 BB 4 K 4 HR 1 View Profile On the other side, Astros right-hander Gerrit Cole (No. 1 pick in 2011) tossed what very well might've been his worst outing of 2018. He surrendered a season-high five runs (four earned) in six innings. The unearned run scored as a result of his own error -- Cole fielded a comebacker in the first inning and chucked it over Yuli Gurriel's head at first base and into the camera well. "That's tough. That's uncharacteristic," said Cole of the error. "I fielded the ball, I checked second, I felt like I had good footing. I threw to Yuli and the back foot gave out as I was throwing it, and I just goosed it." Sunday night was the first time Cole allowed five runs in a start since Sept. 23 of last season, which is 34 starts ago. That includes regular season and postseason. Only five times in 32 regular season starts this year did he allow as many as four runs, and he only did it twice in his final 14 starts of the season. You don't throw 200 1/3 innings with a 2.88 ERA (140 ERA+) in the DH league without limiting stinkers. Runs can be hard to come by when he's on the mound. For Cole, there was a common thread each time he got beat Sunday night: Missed location. Mookie Betts started the game with a booming double off the center field wall, then Andrew Benintendi following with an RBI single to right to give the Red Sox a quick 1-0 lead. Look where catcher Martin Maldonado wanted the first pitch fastball to Benintendi and look where Cole threw it: Gerrit Cole missed his spot by a mile on Andrew Benintendi's first inning RBI single. MLB.com screengrabs On one hand, Cole and the Astros love love love to elevate fastballs. That one checked in at 96 mph. On the other hand, the Red Sox are very good at hitting at hitting high fastballs. They did it better than any other team in baseball during the regular season. Cole missed his spot and put the fastball somewhere Benintendi could handle it, and gave up a run-scoring hit. "I did get a (reliever) up early just because it was going pretty fast for (Cole) in the first inning," Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. "Really the first inning, just his own error really created that. If you can just get the outs when you're supposed to get the outs the inning can change a little bit. With the first two hitters they ambush him a little bit we're down 1-0." Later in that first inning Cole missed his spot again, this time leaving a 2-2 fastball out over the plate to Rafael Devers, who poked it through the left side of the infield to drive in another run. Cole walked the previous batter, Steve Pearce, on four pitches to load the bases. He couldn't spot his fastball -- 19 of his 25 pitches in that first inning were heaters -- and the Red Sox took advantage. "I was just not able to find the zone with it and be able to put pressure on with those offerings," said Cole following Game 2. "I found myself without leverage and I found myself with traffic, and I had to make some pitches. I did the best I could in those situations, but when you're facing some of the best hitters in the world, they do their job as well." The Astros, because they are extremely good at baseball, rallied in the second and third innings to take a 4-2 lead. Cole gave it back and then some in the bottom of the third. He gave up single to Xander Bogaerts, a loud double off the Green Monster to Pearce, and then a walk to Devers to load the bases with one out. Only half of his first 24 pitches that inning were strikes. After loading the bases and striking out Ian Kinsler for the second out, Cole missed his location with a 2-1 fastball to Jackie Bradley Jr., who banged it off the Green Monster the other way for a bases-clearing double. Cole's missed location to Bradley was not as egregious as the Benintendi single, but he missed enough to put it right in Bradley's wheelhouse. Catcher Martin Maldonado wanted the fastball down and away. Instead it was up and out over the plate. MLB.com screengrabs "I was have a little trouble that inning, trying to feel my way through the strike zone," Cole said. "I felt that, after I got the count back 2-1, that I was just going to try to execute fastball down and away, and I executed it down, but it crept out over the plate too much, which gave (Bradley) enough barrel to put it right on the wall down there." To Cole's credit, he was able to settle down following that three-run second third inning -- Cole mentioned making an in-game adjustment but wouldn't elaborate -- and finished his start having retired the final 10 batters he faced. Five runs (four earned) on six hits and two walks in six innings hardly qualifies as a good start, especially in the postseason. Cole was on the ropes several times in the early innings and deserves some credit for not allowing the knockout shot. Gerrit Cole NYY • SP • 45 2018 ALCS Game 2 vs. Red Sox IP 6 H 6 R 5 ER 4 BB 2 K 5 View Profile Unlike Chris Sale in Game 1, when he was missing velocity and had no idea where the ball was going, Cole was a pitcher having a bad game more than anything in Game 2. His stuff was lively as usual and he just missed his spot a bunch of times at unfortunate times. The Red Sox deserve credit for making Cole and the Astros to pay for those mistakes, because, as we saw during the regular season, Cole's stuff is so good he can get away with imperfect location. The Astros came into ALCS with a decided starting pitching advantage, at least on paper, and the Cole vs. Price matchup may have been the most lopsided given Cole's regular season (and ALDS) dominance and Price's postseason track record. Rather than follow Justin Verlander's lead and cruise through his start, Cole labored throughout the early innings in Game 1, and several misplaced fastballs led to some serious damage on the scoreboard.<doc-sep>BOSTON — Who’s the wise guy who flipped the script? This American League Championship Series was supposed to be over. The Boston Red Sox, with their flawed bullpen, weren’t supposed to be more than a little speed bump on the Houston Astros’ path to their second consecutive World Series. Yet, the Red Sox became the first team to beat the Astros in the postseason, 7-5 Sunday night, evening this ALCS at 1-1 with the series now going to Houston for the next three games at Minute Maid Park. The Red Sox not only have a pulse, but momentum, watching their offense explode, David Price survive, and their bullpen go all Nasty Boys after having the worst ERA in the American League in September. Price, who remains winless in 11 postseason starts, still got a hero’s ovation when he walked off the field after 4 2/3 innings, clinging to a 5-4 lead. Little did anyone know that the Astros, who set a major-league record by homering for their 14th consecutive postseason game, wouldn’t get a single hit after the third inning until the two-out ninth, handcuffed by the Red Sox’s sudden vaunted bullpen. If you thought that was surprising, there was the heroics of No. 8 hitter Jackie Bradley Jr., who is known for his Gold Glove-caliber defense, and little else. He hit just .234 with 13 homers and 59 RBI, with a paltry .314 on-base percentage. This night, he looked like Carl Yastrzemski. Bradley walked to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded in the third inning against Gerrit Cole. The Red Sox already were down 4-2 after Marwin Gonzalez’s two-run double in the top of the third, and Ian Kinsler had just struck out on three pitches. Bradley delivered the biggest hit of his life, launching a fastball off the Green Monster that rolled along the ledge, and by the time Gonzalez retrieved the ball, three runs had scored and the Red Sox had a 5-4 lead. The bullpen did the rest. Who are these guys impersonating a World Series-caliber bullpen? The quartet of Matt Barnes, Ryan Brasier, Joe Kelly and Heath Hembree have yet to give up a run this postseason in 16 1/3 innings, without a single extra-base hit. Barnes and Hembree haven’t even given up a hit in 9 1/3 innings. “We’re really confident,’’ Kelly said. “We pitched good towards the end of the year in the regular season. And we threw the ball well in the ALDS against the Yankees, who has a great offense, similar to these guys. And we stayed with our game plan and attacked them. “I think if we continue the same thing with the Astros, trying to stick to the game plan as much as we can, I think we'll still have a successful series against these guys.’’ So far, so good. Why, with the exception of Brandon Workman, the Red Sox bullpen has given up just one earned run in 9 1/3 innings the first two games. This night, they even got a little surprise help, with starter Rick Porcello coming out of the bullpen in the eighth inning, just as they did in Game 1 of the AL Division Series against the Yankees. Porcello, whose next start likely will be pushed back to Game 4 instead of Game 3, pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning, with the Fenway Park crowd rocking with emotion. MORE: Betts back at it:Red Sox MVP comes to life in Game 2 of ALCS Price is right:Pitcher still struggles, but does enough to help Red Sox win Watch out:Astros outfielder runs into Green Monster “Playoffs change the way you play a baseball game,’’ Kelly said. “It sounds weird to say but it does. With the way the bullpens are used, you're seeing these games with seven pitchers on each side go. So to have starters come down there, that's not different because you know it's going to take anything to win that game. “The only thing that is different is starters have to come down there and stand in front of the guys who have been there all year, and take some sunflower seeds to the face.’’ Well, who knows about the sunflower seeds, but the Red Sox can laugh about it all of the way to Houston. This ALCS has become awfully intriguing. Follow Bob Nightengale on Twitter @BNightengale<doc-sep>BOSTON — On Sunday, Mookie Betts gave David Price the best gift he could have imagined: a night off from the narrative. David Price can’t pitch in the postseason. He entered Game 2 of the ALCS with an abysmal record: 10 playoff starts, 10 playoff losses for his team, a 6.03 ERA, untold tabloid headlines and derisive tweets reminding him that he would be the story every time he pitched in October. He left Game 2 having limited enough damage for the Red Sox to win 7–5 and salvage a split of the first two games. “This isn’t about me,” Price insisted after the game. “I understand the narratives. I get that. I deserve those narratives. But this is bigger than David Price. This isn’t about me. This is about the Boston Red Sox.” And, finally, for the first time since he arrived in 2016 on a seven-year, $217 million deal, it was. A night after Betts rolled over a groundball to kill a bases-loaded rally, he laced two doubles into centerfield, one that drove in a run and one that eventually scored one. He also turned a walk into the eventual winning run when he danced around the bases on a wild pitch and two passed balls. The Red Sox bullpen, so untrustworthy that manager Alex Cora has three times in six postseason games used starters as relievers, held the lead. Price’s outing—4 2/3 innings, four runs—became something of a footnote. Cora maintained before the game that Sunday was not a must-win. “It's a game that we know it's important, just like yesterday, just like the rest of the series,” he said. But the truth is that the outcome changed the complexion of the ALCS. Red Sox Ambush Gerrit Cole in Game 2 to Pull Even With Astros in ALCS Boston won 108 games, the most in franchise history and the most in the game this year, but 103-win Houston actually entered the series as the favorite, 53.8% to 46.2%, according to FanGraphs’ playoff odds calculator. The Red Sox had home field advantage but promptly ceded it with the Game 1 loss. If they had lost on Sunday, they would have headed to Houston needing to take four of five against the team whose +263 run differential suggested it was not just the best club this year but one of the best of all time. They trotted out a pair of Cy Young Award candidates—ace Justin Verlander, whose 6.2 WAR was third in the league, and No. 2 Gerrit Cole, whose 5.3 was sixth—in the first two games and should probably have won both. Instead the Red Sox began to play more like the team that got here. It was only a matter of time until Betts, who had been 4­–for–October, broke out. On Sunday afternoon Houston manager A.J. Hinch called him a “ticking time bomb.” “Our approach is to keep him out of the batter's box with any opportunity to do damage,” said Hinch. “He's one of the most dynamic hitters in baseball. And so you can imagine my thought is panic and fear whenever he comes up to bat with no escape area.” And the bullpen had leaked but mostly held against the Yankees, so there was some hope in Boston that if the starters could perform, the Astros might run out of game. The question mark, as it has been since he allowed 16 runs in 23 1/3 October innings in 2015, was Price. Cora told reporters after the implosion against the Yankees that he was not considering demoting Price to the bullpen, and he told Price before the Red Sox had even shed their jerseys in favor of ALDS CHAMPIONS shirts that he would have Game 2, but Price’s history so far is that of perhaps the worst starting performance in 114 years of baseball postseasons. Chris Sale Being Released From Hospital After Overnight Stay Due to Stomach Illness His statistics do not account for the times his managers left him in as he clearly tired, or for his two-run complete game in the ’13 Game 163 tiebreaker that sent his Rays to the playoffs, or for his 2.35 ERA in 15 1/3 postseason relief innings, but they tell a story, and Price knows what it is. As the losses accumulated and the pressure increased, he seemed more and more frustrated. Speculation swirled among the fanbase and the media and even opposing players. Was the moment getting too big for him? Was he demanding so much from himself that he became unable to do anything at all? He kept insisting that he could take the heightened scrutiny, but not until Sunday did he show that. (If we did see a pitcher for whom the moment got too big, it was not Price. It was Cole. “Early I thought he was a little over-amped,” said Hinch. “It was going pretty fast for him in the first inning.”) Price had spoken before the game of the importance of that first inning in setting a tone; he walked two but escaped with a pair of strikeouts. In the second inning he did allow two runs, but those could have been charged to shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who took his time getting to a Carlos Correa groundball and turned an out into an infield single. George Springer doubled down the rightfield line on a ball that traveled 135 feet. Price did not appear to let the miscues rattle him. He struck out José Altuve and walked off the mound to a standing ovation from the sellout crowd of 37,960. They saluted him again when Cora came to get him after 4 2/3—one out shy of that elusive first win as a starter—and Price slightly doffed his cap as he walked to the dugout. The win ensured that that these teams will play at least a Game 5, in Houston. Ace Chris Sale is lined up to start that night. Cora has not yet told Price whether he will have a possible Game 6, but Price is not thinking that far ahead. “I’ll be ready for Tuesday,” when the series resumes, he said. The best outcome for Price the next time he pitches would be a win. The second best would be a night when no one is talking about him.<doc-sep>
BOSTON — He’s the other guy. The guy with the cool name, after legendary soul singer Jackie Wilson. The guy who’s the best defensive center fielder in the game who has never won a Gold Glove. The guy who’s not in the MVP conversation, not a Cy Young winner, not an All-Star closer or even as big a celebrity as the Boston Red Sox announcers. He’s simply Jackie Bradley Jr., the guy who turned the American League Championship Series around with one swing Sunday night, lifting the Red Sox to a 7-5 victory over the Houston Astros at Fenway Park. It was Bradley’s three-run double in the third inning, only the fourth in postseason history, that turned a two-run deficit into a one-run lead and turned the game around, evening this series at 1-1. “It was the whole game,’’ Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez said. “That was huge. That was a big, big hit, man. That relaxed everyone. Gave us some breathing room. ... That just changed the game. “Biggest hit of the year. So far.’’ The Red Sox had just watched Marwin Gonzalez hit a two-run homer in the top of the third inning, virtually silencing the sellout crowd of 37,690 at Fenway Park, when they rallied again off starter Gerrit Cole. They loaded the bases, but then Ian Kinsler struck out on three pitches, bringing up Bradley. MORE: Betts back at it:Red Sox MVP comes to life in Game 2 of ALCS Price is right:Pitcher still struggles, but does enough to help Red Sox win Watch out:Astros outfielder runs into Green Monster Bradley, the No. 8 hitter who hit just .234 during the season with a paltry .717 OPS (on-base-plus-slugging percentage), stepped to the plate, and you heard groans. This is a man who can run down the ball in the outfield better than anyone in the game, but offensively, struggled so often at times this summer that he was benched. He came into the at-bat hitting just .133 this postseason with four strikeouts in 15 at-bats. “It got to the point during the season,’’ Red Sox manager Alex Cora said, “that we had to take him out of the lineup for three, four, five days during a week.’’ Bradley, telling himself to stay patient, watched Cole fall behind 2-and-0, and then swung and missed at Cole’s 95-mph fastball. He looked so bad on it that Cole threw it again. This time, at 98 mph. “I like to be aggressive,’’ Bradley said. “I know they not going to pitch around me.’’ So Bradley swung. And sent it screaming to the opposite field off the Green Monster, and then watched it take the craziest bounce any of the current Red Sox had seen in this storied ballpark. It bounced into foul territory along the padding on the left-field wall and kept rolling. Gonzalez kept waiting for it to come down, but it kept rolling, and rolling, and rolling. By the time it came down, three runs scored, Bradley was on second base, and the old joint was jumping. “I’ve never seen that before, never,’’ Red Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi said. “You never know what you’re going to get out there. There’s a lot going on. “That was a big momentum changer for us. Obviously, huge.’’ Bradley, who joked in the clubhouse that he practiced that cue shot, conceded that he never has seen anything like it before, either, but, man, will he take a little luck. “It’s pretty cool,’’ Bradley said. “I’ve never seen it ride the top of that little edge like that before. It’s pretty unique.’’ The Astros never were the same after the hit. After Gonzalez’s home run off David Price, they sent the next 21 batters to the plate without getting a hit. It wasn’t until George Springer’s two-out double in the ninth off closer Craig Kimbrel that they finally ended their drought. The Red Sox bullpen, stepping in after Price departed with two outs in the fourth inning, was magnificent. Mookie Betts, who should win the MVP award over Martinez, had two doubles and reached base three times. And for the first time in 11 postseason starts, Price was on the winning team in a game he started. “Baby steps, baby steps,’’ Price said. “I expect to win. We won. I expect myself to be great in big moments, and I haven’t done that thus far in my career, but I came here to win.