From Price to Pearce: How stars and unexpected heroes made the Red Sox unstoppable
Then again, it's the best place to hold a party, the place where a baseball team spends untold hours during a season, where the players discuss wins and losses, where friendships begin and the bonding of a championship team comes together.cheap official nike nfl jerseys
Mitch Moreland wandered through the cramped quarters, a can of Budweiser in his hand, and spoke to nobody in particular in his Mississippi drawl, "I need to find my teammates. Where are my teammates?" Finally, Chris Sale, the "skinny one," as manager Alex Cora likes to call him, had had enough.
Sale had entered in the ninth inning in relief -- after starter David Price had pitched seven-plus brilliant innings and reliever Joe Kelly finished off the eighth -- to record the final three outs of the Red Sox's 5-1 clinching victory over the Dodgers in Game 5 of the World Series on Sunday night. Cora's plan, like everything else this postseason, was mapped out to perfection: Price went deep into the game, retiring 14 batters in a row at one point, one of his unheralded middle relievers pitched a shutout inning, and then one of his starters made an appearance in relief.nfl nike jerseys cheap china
It was fitting that Sale got the final three outs. Cora had started Price over Sale in Game 5, a reflection of concern over how deep Sale would be able to pitch given his past two outings when he struggled with his command and diminished velocity. The bullpen had been worked heavily in Games 3 and 4, so Cora made the shift to Price -- knowing he had Sale available in relief if necessary. All Sale did was strike out the side, the exclamation point on Boston's dominant postseason run: 11-3 against the 100-win Yankees, 103-win Astros and the two-time National League champs. On the final strike, Manny Machado whiffed helplessly at a patented Sale slider and the dogpile ensued.
So there was the tall southpaw, goggles perched on top of his head, in the middle of the crowded clubhouse. As we saw in Game 4, when he theatrically screamed at his teammates in the dugout to start doing something, Sale has a voice that can carry a room, even one blaring "Dirty Water" and Cody Johnson's "Dance Her Home." He whistled and shouted, "If you're not a member of the Boston Red Sox, get the ..." He didn't finish the sentence, although somebody else did. Maybe it was Moreland. Sale finished: "I want to enjoy this with my teammates."
