David Price Outlasts Madison Bumgarner, But Red Sox Bats Go Silent In San Francisco
In the showdown between David Price and Madison Bumgarner, Price won the battle, but the Giants won the war.
While Bumgarner made his exit after throwing six innings and allowing one earned run, a home run to Chris Young, and striking out five, Price ended up throwing an 8-inning complete game with seven strikeouts, allowing two earned runs on three hits, but two of them were solo homers. That was it. The only three runs that both teams could muster combined were a trio of solo home runs. The long ball has been a killer for Red Sox pitching lately. In the seven games the Red Sox have played in the month of June, Boston pitchers have allowed 16 home runs. To be fair, they allowed seven home runs in one game to the Baltimore Orioles, but the point remains the same. Too many home runs being given up by this pitching staff.
Despite giving up a pair of home runs and taking the loss, this was still one of the best starts of the year for Price. He got stronger as the game went on, hitting 95 MPH as late as the seventh inning, and averaged 93.97 MPH on his fastball all night. Just to put things in perspective in regards to Price taking the loss in a 2-1 game, the last time the Red Sox scored one run or less this season was over a month ago on May 3.
Price made a mechanical adjustment prior to his May 12 start against the Houston Astros. In the six starts since correcting the flaw, Price has a 2.55 ERA with 38 strikeouts in 42.1 innings, while opponents are hitting just .197 against him. I look at those numbers, and I’m encouraged based on what he was doing prior to this, but I’m still saying it’s not good enough. If you look at what he’s been doing on this recent run of six starts, that’s still only the 25th best ERA among qualified starters in the MLB since May 12. You have your usual suspects like Clayton Kershaw, Jose Fernandez and Bumgarner with an ERA under 1 over that span, but this is David Price we’re talking about. He’s capable of going on runs of several starts where he posts a sub-one ERA, or at the very least a sub-two. So, I’m definitely happy with what I’m seeing, considering how bad it was before, but I need to see more, because I know he’s capable of more.
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But while it was nice to see another strong start from Price, let’s not ignore the fact that this was still very much a winnable game. Trailing by a run in the top of the ninth, Hanley Ramirez reached second base on a botched fly ball in the outfield. Jackie Bradley Jr. came to the plate with nobody out and a runner in scoring position — should he have bunted? In hindsight, the answer is yes. But only because we know that he ended up striking out. In the moment, I believe John Farrell made the right decision by letting him hit, because he’s hitting .340 with an 1.108 OPS with runners in scoring position this year. When you’re on the road, in a National League ballpark, you’ve got to play for the win there, especially with Bradley’s numbers in that situation.
That doesn’t mean that Farrell’s off the hook, though. After Bradley struck out, Chris Young was due up. He had already homered once in the game, and was hitting .400 with a 1.284 OPS, 5 home runs and 6 doubles in his last 16 games. Travis Shaw was scheduled to bat after Young’s spot, and he’s hitting .091 (2-for-22) with 6 strikeouts in his last 6 games. Farrell pinch hit David Ortiz for Young instead of Shaw. This made zero sense to me. The counter argument was that if Young made an out, and Ortiz pinch hit for Shaw instead, then the Giants would be more likely to intentionally walk Ortiz with first base open if there were two outs instead of one.
I don’t think you should play the “what if” game there. Young has been red hot lately, and Shaw has been ice cold. And I fully understand that he was brought here to hit lefties, but all of his home runs this year had come against right-handed pitching up until he took Bumgarner deep last night. You’ve got to let Young hit in that situation. Very poor decision by Farrell, and it could have cost them the game.
Final score: Giants 2, Red Sox 1