Red Sox hope Price is right against A's (Apr 22, 2018)
OAKLAND, Calif. -- David Price hopes to make the most of a sunny California afternoon Sunday when he pitches the Boston Red Sox against the Oakland Athletics in the wake of Sean Manaea's no-hitter Saturday night.
Both teams will be playing for a series win Sunday after Manaea got the A's even with his historic effort in Saturday's 3-0 win.
He walked two and struck out 10 in silencing a team that had won eight in a row, scoring six or more runs in seven of them.
"That's one of the best lineups in the league over there," A's catcher Jonathan Lucroy gushed afterward. "He just no-hit them."
Daniel Mengden, who will oppose Price in the series finale, knows all too well how potent the Boston lineup has been.
The only time in his career that he's pitched against Boston, Mengden got bombed for seven runs and eight hits in 2 2/3 innings in an 11-2 loss.
Hanley Ramirez homered for Boston in that game.
If there's a positive for Mengden to take from the previous meeting, it was that three guys who combined for seven hits in the game -- Dustin Pedroia, Xander Bogaerts and David Ortiz -- won't be in the Boston lineup this time around.
Pedroia and Bogaerts are on the disabled list, while Ortiz has retired.
Price needed little support -- but got plenty nonetheless -- when he held the Los Angeles Angels to three hits and one run over five innings in a 10-1 win on Tuesday.
The game-time temperature in Los Angeles was about 30 degrees warmer than when Price gave Red Sox management a scare when he experienced numbness in his left hand in his previous start at home on April 11.
Price was pulled one inning into that game against the New York Yankees, then spent much of the next six days convincing team doctors it was the 42-degree weather that had caused the numbness, not a recurrence of an elbow injury he had last season.
"It's something I've always had, even whenever I was a little kid," he said of his reaction to the cold. "My hands and my feet are two things that are always cold. Whenever it's cold outside, it intensifies that."
Price was limited to 78 pitches in the night game in Los Angeles. He is expected to pitch without limitations in Sunday's afternoon affair.
Price has gone 4-2 with a 3.13 ERA in nine career starts against the A's. Seven of those starts have been in Oakland, where he's gone 3-2 with a 3.02 ERA.
The Red Sox might have struggled offensively Saturday, but it's been a two-game occurrence for an A's team that was coming off a three-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox in which they scored eight or more runs in each game.
The A's jumped on Boston starter Drew Pomeranz for three runs in the first inning Friday night, but have added a total of just three more in the last 17 innings, losing 7-3 on Friday before getting Saturday's 3-0 win.
Marcus Semien homered off Chris Sale on Saturday, while red-hot Jed Lowrie, who had four hits Friday night, added a run-scoring double.
