BOSTON — Perhaps the duck will stop kicking in Boston.
For as good as David Price has been during the regular season throughout his eight-year career, the left-hander has had his fair share of postseason struggles. He even admitted in October after a mediocre playoff outing for the Toronto Blue Jays against the Texas Rangers that he was like a duck, kicking away beneath the surface despite looking calm and collected on the outside.
Well, it appears there was a method to this duck’s madness.
“I think I was just saving all my postseason wins for the Red Sox,” Price, who just signed a seven-year contract with Boston, said with a smile Friday during his introductory press conference at Fenway Park. “I know good things are going to happen to me in October. That just hasn’t been the case thus far.
“I know those tides are going to change. I work too hard not to have success throughout the entire season. I know I can throw the baseball the way that I do during the regular season, in the playoffs. The time is coming for me, and hopefully it’s in 2016.”
Price is 2-7 with a 5.12 ERA in 14 career playoff games (eight starts). It’s hardly the type of performance one would expect from a five-time All-Star and former Cy Young winner. And it’s exactly the type of material one can point to when poking holes in Boston’s decision to give him a $217 million deal.
But perhaps Price’s playoff futility is overblown. After all, he was dominant out of the bullpen against the Red Sox for the Tampa Bay Rays during the 2008 ALCS. And he also tossed a complete game in Tampa Bay’s 2013 American League wild card tiebreaker win over the Texas Rangers.
Plus, it’s not like other pitchers haven’t struggled in the postseason, only to suddenly figure it out.
“I don’t really make a whole lot (of Price’s playoff struggles),” Red Sox manager John Farrell said Friday. “ … Those can be situational. There’s another left-hander that it was later on in his career before he started to win his first postseason game, and whether the left-handers come along a little bit later, who knows, but Randy Johnson turned out to be pretty good, too, in the postseason.”
Price’s confident talk could just be a lot of quacking. Then again, the 30-year-old has the talent and the regular-season pedigree to suggest things could go swimmingly come playoff time in Boston.
Maybe his next duck reference will be about the duck boats the Red Sox are riding in next October.
Thumbnail photo via Twitter/@FOXSports
