ST. PETERSBURG — It was after the third inning Thursday afternoon when David Price finally spoke to his pitching coach and his catcher, kind of an unusual move since the three would normally huddle before a game and go over the hitters. But Price wasn’t concerned with the holes in Adam Lind’s swing or what pitch gets Vernon Wells to expand his strike zone.
David Price was concerned about only one person Thursday: David Price.
“I just wanted to be myself,” Price said.
He was, or at least he was the David Price that’s been advertised.
The rookie left-hander rebounded from the worst outing of his brief career to pitch the Tampa Bay Rays past Roy Halladay and the Toronto Blue Jays 3-2 in front of 25,749 at Tropicana Field, a matinee crowd swelled by thousands of campers.
“We needed that,” Rays reliever Grant Balfour said of Price. “Halladay is a tough competitor. There aren’t too many games where he gets blown out.”
The Rays seem to own Halladay lately since Thursday was the second time the Rays have beaten the Jays’ top starter in the past 11 days. It was also the fifth time over the past two seasons the Rays have defeated Halladay.
“You beat other good pitchers by pitching well,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said.
That’s what Price did, and he did it by simplifying his game plan, something he didn’t do last Saturday when he lasted 1 1/3 innings and allowed six runs to the Texas Rangers.
“You can tell I was out there thinking of everything, trying to please everyone,” Price said.
A closed-door meeting with Maddon after that game helped Price clear his mind. Maddon told Price to forget about pitching to a hitter’s weakness and focus on pitching to his own strength. Maddon’s desk normally holds a mountain of stats, but Maddon said sometimes too much information is a bad thing.
“There are certain moments when you want to walk away from it, and go back to your primal instincts,” Maddon said.
Maddon called it the “see ball, throw ball” approach, which is what Price did at Vanderbilt to become the first overall pick in the 2007 draft and what he did last October when he helped pitch the Rays to the World Series.
“You think back to when you were successful and go back to those roots,” Price said.
That’s why Price passed on the traditional pregame scouting report.
“I didn’t talk to (pitching coach Jim) Hickey or (catcher Michel) Hernandez,” Price said. “I went out there to be myself.”
During one of the rare times Thursday when Price seemed unsettled, Rays first baseman Carlos Peña walked to the mound and offered this advice: “Throw it right down the middle. Their best guy can’t hit it.”
It was Peña’s two-run double in the fifth inning off Halladay that broke a 1-1 tie and enabled the Rays to finish the series sweep and extend their home winning streak to a season-high eight games.
Price allowed one run for the fourth time in nine starts. He struck out seven and walked one, marking the first time in his past four starts he had more strikeouts than walks.
“Very nice job by David Price,” Maddon said.
The trick is to do it again. Price is on a run of bad start, good start, bad start, good start.
“Absolutely,” Price said. “That’s the definition of a real good pitcher.”
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