World Series Game 5 turning points: David Price

Boston’s pitcher, often-maligned for his October work, provides seven solid innings and keys the Red Sox’ World Series clinching victory

The Boston Red Sox won the 2018 World Series because David Price pitched the best post-season game of his life, because Steve Pearce played the game of his life, and because Red Sox pitchers kept the ball in the park.

The victory gave Boston a fourth World Series championship since 2004. They also won in 2007 and 2013.  Aside from the New York Yankees, only two other franchises in history have won four titles in a 15-season stretch. The Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers won four World Series between 1955 and 1965; the St. Louis Cardinals won five times between 1931 and 1946.

The Dodgers became only the fourth team in the past half-century to lose consecutive World Series. The others were the 2010-11 Texas Rangers, the 1991-92 Atlanta Braves and the 1977-78 Los Angeles Dodgers.

They also became just the 13th team since the advent of the divisional era in 1969 to win the World Series after compiling the regular season’s best record. The last team to do it was the 2016 Chicago Cubs. The Red Sox also did it in 2007 and 2013.

And Red Sox manager Alex Cora became the first rookie manager to win the World Series since Bob Brenly accomplished the feat with the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Red Sox dominated Sunday’s game virtually from start to finish. In fact the contest may have been determined by two careless Clayton Kershaw pitches in the first inning. With an 0-2 count on Andrew Benitendi, Kershaw laid a slider in the fat part of the strike zone and Benintendi drove it into center field for a single. On the very next pitch, Kershaw’s 91 mph fastball caught enough of the plate for Pearce to pound it into a maintenance area beyond the center field wall.

Here’s a deeper look at how the Red Sox captured in game 5, wrapping up the World Series title.

David Price re-imaged

Price spotted the Dodgers one pitch, then dominated. LA leadoff hitter David Freese rode Price’s first fastball into the seats in right-center. After that, Price retired 20 of the next 24 batters. The four exceptions were Justin Turner, who walked after Freese’s homer and was immediately erased on a  double play, Yasiel Puig, who singled in the second, Freese on a third inning triple that J.D. Martinez lost in the setting sun, and Chris Taylor,  whose walk leading off the eighth prompted Price’s removal.

Price’s secret was pinpoint control. He threw 89 pitches on the evening, 32 of which rode the absolute frontiers of the strike zone.  That meant that for the most part, the Dodgers never got a pitch to hit.

The Red Sox left-hander had entered the 2018 post-season with an established reputation for under-performance in October. That reputation included a 2-8 record and a 5.20 ERA dating back to his days with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008.

In this post-season, however, he turned that profile around. Price’s 3-1 record was built on 26 innings of work and a 3.46 ERA. Considering the World Series alone, Price’s two starts and one relief appearance produced two victories – the second coming Sunday – and a 1.24 ERA.

Trials of Machado

Price’s dominance was nowhere more in evidence than in his matchups against Dodger cleanup hitter Manny Machado. With two out in the first inning, the two squared off in an epic mano-a-mano that spanned nine pitches and only ended when Price coaxed a frustrated Machado into chasing a riding 94-mph four-seam fastball several inches above the top  of the strike zone.

Again in the fourth, Machado came up against Price, this time as the leadoff hitter. Price started him with a wide changeup that Machado chased for strike one.  He followed up with two pitches just high and tight enough to be interesting; Machado fouled both of them off. The fourth pitch was a changeup low and away, the fifth another change a fraction closer to the corner. Machado was fooled enough to bite and miss for strike three.

In the sixth, Price started Machado with a fastball in tight for ball one. A two-seam fastball at the bottom of the zone evened the count, then on the third pitch Price got lucky. He left a two-seam fastball over the heart of the plate that Machado might have buried in the bleachers. Instead he lined a bullet right at Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts.

Chris Sale, who came into pitch the ninth, finished Machado’s evening of personal humiliation, striking him out on four pitches. The last was a diving low and in slider that Machado couldn’t hold up on to end the game.

One-dimensional offense

Throughout the Series, the Dodgers’ problem was a team-wide inability to expand its home-run oriented attack. Across 54 innings of World Series play, Los Angeles scored just 16 runs, of which only seven scored on anything other than a long ball.

And it’s not like the seven non-home run producing events were inspiring…they included two singles, two sacrifice flies, two errors and an infield ground out.

Because the Dodger offense produced so few scoring opportunities, that lack of dimensionality was not much in evidence Sunday, but it could be found. In the second, Yasiel Puig delivered a one-out single, but neither Chris Taylor nor Austin Barnes could move him.

Similarly in the third, David Freese lucked into a triple when J.D. Martinez lost sight of his fly ball in deep right. The ball dropped harmlessly and rolled to the wall. In that particular circumstance, statisticians estimate a 67 percent chance that the run would score…a big deal since it represented the tying run in a World Series game that Dodgers had to win. In that situation, a sacrifice fly from the Dodgers’ best hitter, Justin turner, was mandatory. But Turner grounded harmlessly to short, Kike Hernandez flied to right, and the threat was zeroed out.