Staying Alive

The Red Sox won big this afternoon, 10-3 with David Price making an excellent contribution out of the bullpen. To hear Shank describe that contribution, you'd think he had just cured cancer.

He was Sidney Wicks, Jack Clark, Rick Pitino, Adalius Thomas, Carl Crawford, and Adrian Gonzalez. He was a top talent who made his professional bones and bags of cash in some other town, then came to Boston and offended an entire base of loyal fans.

Some of the treatment David Price received was unfair. Some of it was not.

But in the end, the lessons of professional sports are universal. Boston fans are no different from fans in any other sports-crazed town: If you perform, they will love you. If you don’t perform, be prepared to hear slander, libel, and words you never heard in the Bible.

Shank's one of the perpetrators; has been for well over three decades. There's little doubt in my mind John Henry told Shank to tone it down with criticism of Price.

Price performed in Sunday’s elimination Game 3 of the ALDS, coming out of the bullpen to stop the bleeding when it looked as if the Red Sox would suffer an ignominious sweep for the second straight October. Price’s four innings of shutout relief kept the Astros on the launch pad while the Sox ran to a 10-3 season-saving victory over Houston.

“The story of this one is David Price,’’ said Sox manager John Farrell, who might have been saved from the gallows with this win.

We'll see tomorrow, won't we?