Early Friday morning, baseball fans around here wanted to talk about a particular animal, one we see in zoos and on documentaries all the time.
Sports nut Ben Nawn, who works in the graphics department at ESPN, graduated from Concord High in 2013. I asked him about Red Sox pitcher David Price, and he brought up the animal right away.
“I’m happy for him,” Nawn told me Friday from his home in Bristol, Conn. “This is a huge monkey off his back.”
And this monkey was so big, in fact, that King Kong looked like a baby chimp in comparison. So big, in fact, that fans like Nawn now see Price – the expensive, much-maligned pitcher labeled as a choke artist in Boston – as a person, with a heart, a soul and a mind.
As Nawn told me, “At some point you have to put stats aside and think about the person.”
This is that point. Price was marvelous Thursday night in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series against the Houston Astros. He threw six scoreless innings, leading the Red Sox to a 4-1 win and punching their ticket to the World Series.
He gave up just three hits. He struck out nine. He walked none. He took that proverbial monkey, with its gator-like grip holding Price’s shoulders, and pried those fingers loose. Before Thursday, Price had been winless in nine playoff decisions as a starting pitcher, including an 0-2 record since joining the Red Sox in 2016.
Given that, Nawn hasn’t totally forgiven Price, citing his lack of mental toughness caused by the pressure-packed climate in the Boston sports scene. But when you pitch the Red Sox into the World Series, the critical voices soften.
“Honestly, I think last night was big for him,” Nawn said. “We saw vintage Price. We saw what we saw during the regular season.”
Price’s career falls into two categories: the all star in spring and summer, the flop during the fall.
Even with terrific regular-season numbers, Price couldn’t escape the wrath of Fenway. He suffered from allergies, played a lot of video games and hated the cold weather, and he was accused of using all three as excuses for poor outings.
He got into a tiff with Dennis Eckersley, a beloved former Red Sox pitcher, the team’s TV color analyst and member of the Hall of Fame. His contract pays him about $1 million per start. He always stunk against the hated New York Yankees, and that included the thumping he took at Yankee Stadium during the first round of the playoffs.
Add in his overall playoff record, and Price had evolved into public enemy No. 1 as far as Red Sox Nation was concerned. He was a pinanda getting whacked, with growls and terse answers and sarcasm spilling from him, not candy.
In the big games, this was no deer in the headlights. That was an insult to the deer. This was more like a kitten in the headlights.
Fans in this region love a good scapegoat, a whipping boy to vent when things aren’t going well, and Price was their man, the poster boy for the Heimlich maneuver, his windpipe jammed with nerves when the spotlight grew too hot.
“I still think the pressure gets to him,” Nawn said. “Boston is not the place for him and never was.”
Hold on, said another Red Sox fan. Bonnie Larochelle is a third-grade teacher at the Christa McAuliffe School. Up early for class, she’d go to sleep during the late innings, then wake up in the middle of the night and turn on the TV. If the game had ended, she’d turn to her phone.
Larochelle never lost faith in Price, and she didn’t like it when Yankees fans gave him a facetious standing ovation when he got bounced from that playoff game earlier this month.
“I still had high hopes for him,” Larochelle said. “I thought he was a good pitcher, that he would turn it around and he did.”
Larochelle compared Price to her students and complimented Sox manager Alex Cora in the same breath, saying, “Cora did not lose confidence in him. I see it from kids all the time. When they lose confidence they are not successful.”
Larochelle’s husband, Joe Larochelle, was more critical of Price because of his salary. “I thought the Sox had paid too much for him and he was not producing enough in the regular season,” Joe Larochelle said. “But honestly, he did a fantastic job (Thursday) night, and I was surprised that Cora put him in. It’s a monkey off his back, and hopefully he’ll keep it going.”
There’s that metaphor again. The monkey is still hanging around, given that Price has now won just once in the postseason after nine losses, dating back to 2010.
The World Series opens Tuesday at Fenway Park. Cora hasn’t announced his pitching rotation yet, but he hinted that Price would be his starter for Game 2 Wednesday in Boston.
Price was right once. Can he do it again? A monkey – the monkey – is waiting to see.
“He’s not off the leash yet,” said Nawn, referring to Price, not the monkey. “If he can do it in the World Series, then we can have that conversation. Then he’s clear.”