The Boston Red Sox beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 in Game 5 of the World Series, making them world champions for the fourth time this century. This is piss.
The hero of the night was Boston starter David Price, who put an end to any griping coming from the less charitable segments of the team’s fanbase with a legendary performance. Thanks to the distorting powers of the 18-inning slog that both teams had to play through on Friday night, this was already Price’s third appearance in the series. He started Game 2 just four days ago, and pitched to two batters out of the bullpen in Game 3. He looked no worse for wear through seven dominant innings tonight, in which he struck out five and surrendered just three hits.
Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw couldn’t quite match Price. Though he spent parts of the game breezing through the Red Sox lineup, He served up three dingers in seven innings to Steve Pearce, Mookie Betts, and J.D. Martinez. Those provided more than enough runs for Price to work with, and then Pearce went and added another run with an eighth-inning blammo off Pedro Baez.
There are plenty of narrative pegs to hang what was ultimately a pretty strange series on, but Game 5 just felt like a ho-hum baseball game that was won by the superior team. In that sense, it was most indicative of how the Red Sox became world champions this year. This team won 108 games in the regular season, dispatched two good playoff opponents in the Yankees and Astros, took a 2-0 series lead against the Dodgers, and then bounced back from a torturous 18-inning loss in Game 3 to wrap up the series in five. The 2018 Boston Red Sox were really, really good, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.