What Price glory?: Decisive moments from World Series Game 2

Save for a single inning, the Boston Red Sox dominated the Los Angeles Dodgers in their 4-2 World Series victory Tuesday at Fenway Park.

The outcome gives Boston a  2-0 World Series advantage as the contest shifts to Los Angeles for Games 3 through 5 (if necessary) Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings.

On the scoreboard, this game was closer than Tuesday’s 8-4 Red Sox win in Game 1. On the field, it was another matter. The visitors made only one pass at success against the American League champions, and while that pass yielded two runs it proved to be an isolated splurge.

For the remainder of the evening, Red Sox starter David Price and three relievers throttled Los Angeles batters, holding them hitless with just two baserunners – both on walks. The last 16 Dodger batters were retired without incident.

The more controlled nature of Wednesday’s Sox victory meant the game’s pivot points, its key moments, were often more subtle than obvious. Yet as is always the case in big games involving evenly contested teams, those moments of decision existed. Had they turned out differently – as they might have – the outcome could have changed.

Let’s walk back through Game Two’s key decision points and assess the impact they had on the eventual 4-2 final score. We’ll find Boston emerging on top due to a number of factors: a catcher’s ability to overcome a tough situation, a vaunted bench’s flailing, and one more pitching substitution that went awry.

Invisible backstop shines bright

Christian Vazquez got the biggest hit of the night, but he did it in an understated way befitting his status as the least recognized cog in the Boston machine.

Vazquez, who batted just .207 during the regular season, faced Dodger starter Hyun Jim Ryu with two out and nobody aboard in the bottom of the fifth. Los Angeles led 2-1 at that moment, and Ryu appeared to have matters on cruise control. He had retired seven consecutive Red Sox hitters, and had allowed just one run.

Probably approaching the end of his night’s work, he was within one batter of completing five innings and handing the lead over to the Dodger bullpen. Vazquez was that one batter.

Ryu, whose command had been excellent all evening, started him with a curve breaking low over the plate that Vazquez watched for strike one. Then the catcher went into self-defense mode, fouling off two pitches up in his eyes. Ryu missed inside with a fastball, then tried to get him with a cutter on the outside corner. Vazquez fought it off and sent it looping in front of right fielder Yasiel Puig for a single.

By itself, the hit looked harmless; it was actually lethal. The next hitter, Mookie Betts, sent a ground ball whizzing past Ryu’s feet into center field for another hit. Andrew Benintendi took two pitches in the dirt, fought off two strikes, ran the count to 3-2, and on the at-bat’s eighth pitch watched a fastball dive low and away from catcher Austin Barnes for a bases filling walk.

Moments earlier Ryu had been a pitch away from retiring his eighth consecutive batter and concluding another perfect inning. Instead, he was out of the game in favor of….

Madson’s meltdown

Through Tuesday’s World Series opener, Ryan Madson had been one of Dave Roberts’ most reliable post-season bullpen weapons. His eight appearances had encompassed 7.1 innings, allowing just one run, walking just two and striking out seven. His post-season ERA was 1.23

But relievers’ lines can be deceiving, and Madson’s was. It included an inning during Tuesday’s Game 1 loss in which the book showed that he recorded three outs at a cost of one hit and one walk. What the book did not show were the two inherited runners that walk and hit allowed to score, runs that contributed to the Dodger loss, if not to the elevation of Madson’s ERA.

Nevertheless, when Ryu loaded the bases with two out Roberts pulled him in favor of Madson. There were two reasons behind this move. The first was that right-hander Steve Pearce was due up. The second was that … well, Madson was the guy Roberts planned to be “first out of the pen” all along. And you know how managers hate to deviate from plans.

So Roberts brought in Madson with the bases full in the game’s most critical situation. His first pitch, a 94 mph fastball, sailed high and tight on Pearce’s chin. His second, another 94 mph fastball, came even closer to creasing Pearce’s face. Madson fired a third fastball that somehow clipped the top fringe of the strike zone, then fired his fourth and fifth heaters, both of them a foot or so above the top of the zone. Having done nothing more strenuous than duck, Pearce ambled to first base as Vazquez trotted across the plate with the game-tying run.

Madson’s first pitch to the next hitter, J.D. Martinez, also sailed inside for ball one. His second caught just enough of the plate for Martinez to line it into right field for a hit that scored both Betts and Benitendi.

Having given the game away, Madson proceeded to whiff Xavier Bogaerts to end the disastrous finish to what had started out as an uneventful fifth inning for Ryu. For the record, Madson exited with an official line of one-third of an inning worked, one hit, one walk, one strikeout, and no runs allowed.

Bottoming-out bench

Through the World Series’ first two games, Roberts has used his four bench players – Joc Pederson, Max Muncy, Yasmani Grandal and Cody Bellinger – as a platoon to be deployed more or less in unison once the Red Sox went away from their left-handed starters and to their right-hand dominant bullpen.

It’s always nice to have a strategy, but it’s even nicer when the strategy actually works. Los Angeles’ problem is that through two games the platoon system is proving to be a prismatic failure. That is to say, it’s been a flop any way you look at it.

Here are the numbers. During Tuesday’s first game, the Dodger left-handed reserves went a combined 1-or-6 with a base on balls. On Wednesday, they went hitless in four trips, three of them strikeouts.

Meanwhile the right-handers they replaced – Brian Dozier, David Freese, Kike Hernandez and Austin Barnes — went a collective 1-for-8 with two walks Wednesday and 3-for-17 through the first two games with three bases on balls and two runs scored.

In other words, Roberts could take his pick between a quartet of .100 hitters or a quartet of .176 hitters.

If both ends of your team’s platoon are floundering, there’s really not much  for a manager to do…except fly back home and hope the change of weather helps.

Price’s new postseason reputation

Until a week ago, David Price had the reputation as one of baseball’s least effective post-season pitchers. He was famously winless through 10 post-season starts across six seasons and for four teams.  Then Price beat the Astros 4-1 last week to wrap up the American League pennant. Suddenly he is this mad post-season genius.

Okay, that may be gilding the lily a bit…but Price did manage six innings Wednesday – more than any other pitcher in this series has completed — and with a single exception they were solid innings. He retired the side in order three times, and allowed just an uneventful walk in two other innings.

His only reversion to prior post-season form came in the top of the fourth when the Dodgers strung together all three of their base hits – each one a single – with a walk and a sacrifice fly to produce their only two runs. Price’s secret was simple: working ahead. Of the 24 batters he faced, 18 either got a first-pitch strike or put the first pitch into play.

The result was efficiency. Price needed only 88 pitches to complete those six innings; that’s fewer than 15 per inning. He only threw 30 outside the strike zone, spending most of the night on corners.

As it happened, Price did better on those corners than plate umpire Kerwin Danley, who if he did anything occasionally got in Price’s way. According to Statcast, Price threw 14 pitches that either just caught or just missed the fringe of the strike zone.   Ten of those 14 pitches creased the strike zone…but Price only got the call on five of them. So as efficient as Price was, with some help behind the plate he might have been even more dominant.