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Bruins-Islanders Game 1 Set For Saturday Night At TD GardenWe don't have a full series schedule just yet, but at least we know when the Bruins and the Islanders will begin their second-round series.<doc-sep>With five days before the start of the World Series, Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora has time to line up his pitching rotation. Cora, speaking Friday on WEEI, confirmed that ace Chris Sale will go in Game 1 at Fenway Park on Tuesday, facing either the Los Angeles Dodgers or Milwaukee Brewers. The National League Championship Series is tied at three games apiece. Game 7 is Saturday night in Milwaukee. Cora said he would wait until he knew the opponent before deciding the rest of the rotation. But the manager said that David Price -- brilliant in Thursday night's ALCS-clinching Game 5 against the Houston Astros -- would "probably" start Game 2. Sale has not pitched since Saturday's Game 1 loss to the Astros in the ALCS. He has been sidelined by a stomach virus that sent him to the hospital on Sunday. Cora said Sale has been regaining strength since his release Monday from Massachusetts General Hospital, where he spent Sunday night for observation. The club hasn't specified Sale's ailment or treatment. The Red Sox arrived back in Boston on Friday morning and were greeted by an ALCS championship banner that had already been hung at Fenway Park.<doc-sep>The Red Sox look to win a critical Game 2 against the Astros behind beleaguered David Price (16-7, 3.58 ERA) tonight at Fenway Park (7:09 p.m., TBS). About Game 2: Price didn’t make it out of the second inning in his first playoff start against the Yankees, but the Yankees owned him all year. The Astros are a different story. His 3.65 ERA is pretty good, considering the level of competition and, frankly, the Sox would kill for that sort of line given Price’s playoff woes as a starter. He might need to do better than that, though. The Astros start Gerrit Cole (15-5, 2.88 ERA), the former Pirates starter who has made the leap during his first year in Houston. He’s got command of three pitches, so the Sox have their hands full and frowny faces on, as you can see in this technical graphic: ALCS Game 2 Preview: Gerrit Cole's Stuff (upper 90s Fastball, Slider and Knuckle Curve), Overlay pic.twitter.com/6tUgeXgDaE — Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) October 14, 2018 Rafael Devers finally gets the start tonight at third, while Ian Kinsler is at second and Christian Vázquez is behind the plate. The Astros run the same lineup back. Wouldn’t you? About Game 1: Chris Sale wasn’t sharp enough and the bullpen let the game get away late as the Sox fell, 7-2. Forecast: 54 degrees and clear. Today’s reading: Here’s Matt on Price’s big chance. A good tweet: YOU: David Price doesn’t have what it takes mentally to beat Houston ME: pic.twitter.com/wzuDOggdLw — jeff israel (@jeffisrael25) October 10, 2018 LINEUPS<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.<doc-sep>
Overall, David Price is having a good October. After having seemingly reinstated his reputation by pitching a six-inning gem in the clinching game of the ALCS, he came out this week against the Dodgers, and threw another solid performance in Game Two of the World Series. Price turned out another quality start (this one six innings of two-run ball), propelling Boston to a commanding 2-0 World Series lead. Price served as a bit of the unsung hero in the second half of 2018. With Chris Sale nursing a shoulder injury that caused him to barely pitch at all from August 1st onward, Price took on the ‘ace’ role for a team that was thoroughly in command of the AL East. Without a real pennant race, Price kept doing what he is best at, and the Red Sox continued to distance themselves from the rest of the division. Through 68 second-half innings, Price held opposing hitters to a sub-.200 batting average and a measly .262 on-base percentage. Price’s performance early in the playoffs was less-than-impressive, and the articles and commentary started up again about how he is ineffective in October. Price came out of the bullpen in Game Two of the LDS and gave up two home runs to the Yankees, in the only game New York salvaged in the series; an indication that against good offenses, in high-leverage situations, he was still homer-prone . He followed up that performance by giving up four runs in 4 ⅔ innings in Game Three of the ALCS against Houston, a game which the Red Sox ultimately won, no thanks to Price. But this October baseball, the epitome of ‘what have you done for me lately’. And what Price has done lately, is position the Red Sox for their fourth World Series title in 14 years. Before the World Series started, my esteemed colleague Dan Epstein (yes, the same Dan Epstein who won a trivia contest and is going to Game Four!) wrote an article previewing the Price matchup. Dan broke down pitch usage by handedness, and demonstrated that if any team would be successful against a lefty with Price’s repertoire, it would be the Dodgers. With the Dodgers depth and roster flexibility, they unsurprisingly did not have a single left-handed plate appearance against Price. Even so, Los Angeles’ offense only got something going against Price in the two-run fourth inning. Despite not one extra base hit, LA put up two runs via three singles, a walk, and a sacrifice fly. Interestingly, despite previously utilizing his cutter nearly one-third of the time against right-handed batters, Price basically shelved it in Game Two, instead choosing to rely on his fastballs (both a four-seamer and two-seamer/sink) and his changeup. Overall, only six of his total 88 pitchers were classified as cutters per Brooks Baseball. David Price’s WS Pitch Usage Raw Count Percentage Usage Raw Count Percentage Usage Fourseam 23 26.14 Sinker 34 38.64 Change 25 28.41 Cutter 6 6.82 Total 88 Price induced a swing-and-misses on over ¼ of each of these three pitch-types, which ultimately led to his five strikeouts. He danced around three walks, one of which was crucial to the Dodgers two-run, fourth-inning rally, but LA never really hit the ball hard against Price. With no extra-base hits, and only one sequence where LA strung together more than a single baserunner, the opportunities were limited. The only baserunners in the first three innings were two-out walks in the first and third innings. Those runners were promptly erased when the following batter made the third out of the inning. Price sat LA hitters down 1-2-3 in the fifth and sixth innings, handed the ball to a bullpen that pitched perfectly through the next three innings, and so ended the Dodgers night — with zero runners on base past the fourth inning. Although it seems that at this stage in baseball history, the role of the starting pitcher is diminishing, particularly in the playoffs, there will always be a necessity for innings eaters in order to cleanly win a short series. When ‘aces’ such as Chris Sale and Clayton Kershaw get pulled in the fourth inning, performances like Price’s become increasingly more important to save bullets in the bullpen. Price earned his stripes in Game Two of the World Series, providing little opportunity for the Dodgers to take the lead, and despite one rally in the fourth inning, never looking like he lost control of the game.