The Price is wrong? Or maybe it’s just not on Sale?
While you can sue me over the puns, blaming an overly aggressive columnist is not an antidote to Price and Sale's poor postseason outings. In the playoffs, the duo has been polar opposites. No, not that one has been monumentally stellar and the other, breathtakingly inept. One has been bad, and the other hasn't yet had a chance to flaunt his potential ineptitude.
No Red Sox starter is avoiding the ringer here, and it starts from the top down. Chris Sale, slinger of sliders and shredder of jerseys, spent the first seven years of his career with the hapless Chicago White Sox, never close to sniffing the postseason. Then he stopped using bleach with his laundry and suddenly found his Sox to be Red.
While red is perhaps more aesthetically and historically pleasing, it did not come with a “How-to-Pitch-in-the-Postseason” handbook. In his lone playoff start last year, Sale was torched for seven runs in five innings against the Astros, as the Sox eventually bowed out in four games to the eventual champs. Don't forget that Sale is coming off an injury that forced him to miss a third of the season. Playoff ERA: 8.38.
David Price, on the other hand, has a substantial body of work in the playoffs. This body, however, may be missing a few limbs. Over 73 innings pitched, and over 73 reasons to be worried. Here’s one: Price has a career 4.90 ERA against the Yankees, the Red Sox's likely first-round opponent (assuming the Yanks hold off the ever-pesky Athletics) and an “intimidating” 10.34 mark this season. If pitching poorly against the Yankees and pitching poorly in the playoffs are both likely scenarios for Price, does the intersection of the two make it a certainty? Uh oh. Playoff ERA: 5.03
Rick Porcello will likely toe the rubber next — not likely to inspire any more confidence than Price or Sale. Porcello, who claimed the American League Cy Young Award in 2016, has not done the honor proudly in the playoffs. 11 games and four starts, none longer than 4.1 innings since 2011. Playoff ERA: 5.47.
Eduardo Rodriguez and former Yankee Nathan Eovaldi will be in contention for the last spot in Boston’s four-man ragtag. The latter’s never been there and finished the season auditioning for a long reliever role. Rodriguez, meanwhile, took one dive into the postseason pool last season. If my understanding of the infinite is correct, he’s technically still underwater: He allowed two runs without recording an out. Eovaldi Playoff ERA: n/a. Rodriguez Playoff ERA: “INFINITE."
The Yankees, meanwhile, are the fun Wild Card underdog. Just the connotations of the word “wild card” spark a wide range of potentially intriguing outcomes, and it's become a narrative I hope the team embodies. The Sox? Thinking more along the lines of scattered limbs, overpriced goods, clearance sales and maybe even Eolive oil?
And if you want to calculate that combined postseason ERA, I’m confused a bit by the math. Isn't it, strictly speaking, infinite?
The Anti-Bostonian: The case against the Red Sox pitching staff
