Red Sox LEAD WS 2-0; Dodgers pay d’ price

BOSTON –  From playoff flop to October ace in two legacy-shifting starts, David Price earned his second postseason victory in a row and moved the Boston Red Sox halfway to yet another World Series title.

The Red Sox left-hander pitched six innings of three-hit ball, and major league RBI leader J.D. Martinez broke a fifth-inning tie during another two-out rally to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-2 on Wednesday night.

Game 3 is Friday in Los Angeles. The Dodgers need a win to avoid a 0-3 deficit that no World Series team has ever recovered from.

“This is the biggest stage in baseball,” Price said after his longest postseason outing since signing a seven-year, $217 million contract to come to Boston in 2016. “To be able to do that, it feels good, for sure. I’m pumped for myself, pumped for all my teammates and coaches for us to be two wins away.”

Mookie Betts had three hits for the Red Sox, who have won 14 of their last 16 World Series games dating to a four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004. They have won two more championships since then, in ‘07 and ‘13.

Not bad for a team that went the previous 86 years without a title.And Price had battled a curse of his own.

The one-time Dodgers draft pick has pitched like an ace in the regular season but was 0-9 in his first 10 postseason starts before this October. Whether with Tampa Bay, Toronto, Detroit or Boston, his team had never won a playoff game he started before this year.

But the Red Sox have now won his last three postseason starts, including the ALCS Game 5 clincher against the defending World Series champion Astros  in which he pitched six shutout innings.