Just the man for the job

Price's role in Game 7 doesn't surprise Corbin

Rookie lefthander David Price gave the Rays, and catcher Dionner Navarro, a lift with his four-out save in their ALCS-clinching Game 7 victory over the Red Sox. (Jim Davis/Globe Staff)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Fans from Bangor to Barrington viewed it as the painstaking end to their team's season. Red Sox batters viewed it as a dead end to their spirited efforts. But longtime Red Sox fan Tim Corbin, watching from his home in Tennessee, viewed Sunday's Game 7 American League Championship Series loss as sweet redemption for a young man who is like a son to him.

David Price, a 23-year-old flamethrower whose meteoric rise in the game mirrors the Tampa Bay Rays' worst-to-first Hollywood story, honed his talents pitching for Corbin at Vanderbilt University, and that connection runs deeper than a young man's attachment to his childhood team.

"I'll always be a Red Sox fan," said Corbin, who grew up in Wolfeboro, N.H., in the shadows of Lake Winnipesaukee. "My father [Jack] still lives in North Conway and he's got 77 years invested in the Red Sox. But it's a 'blood is thicker' sort of thing, because he knows I coached one of those guys [Price]. You root for your kids first, your team second."

Price being one of his "kids," a prized recruit early in Corbin's Vanderbilt tenure and a southpaw to whom the coach has pledged a lifetime allegiance as payback for all the efforts and all the memories - none more bittersweet than that game against Michigan in the spring of 2007. Corbin couldn't help but think of that game as he watched Price get the final four outs Sunday night to clinch an improbable pennant.

Vanderbilt needed to beat Michigan to remain in contention for a College World Series berth when Corbin summoned his prize lefthander from the bullpen. Minutes later, a Wolverine who had never hit a home run took Price deep and just like that, Vanderbilt's season was over. So was Price's collegiate career - a shocking and disappointing end to a season that had seen him win every award possible.

"The game knows," Corbin said. "The game comes around. He didn't deserve for that to happen [against Michigan]. Sunday was symbolic, though. It was fair. Everything he didn't deserve against Michigan came around. He got what he deserved Sunday night."

All Price did Sunday night was enter the game in the eighth inning with the bases loaded and Tampa Bay clinging to a 3-1 lead. Nearly 40,000 people were screaming for the fourth relief pitcher of the inning to get that third and final out. Daunting stuff for a 23-year-old who had spent most of the season at minor league outposts in Vero Beach, Fla., Montgomery, Ala., and Durham, N.C., a young man whose major league experience before Oct. 1 consisted of five appearances and 14 innings.

Surely, Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon must not have had faith in the rest of his bullpen, but Corbin knew otherwise. Jack Corbin had called his son a few days earlier to ask why in the world Price hadn't been brought in to help nail down the big lead in Game 5, and Tim Corbin laughed. "I told him, 'They will use him. Trust me, they will use him.' He's that guy who wants the ball."

When Maddon handed it to him Sunday night, the pennant was on the line and J.D. Drew, a player whose reputation as a clutch hitter in October has been growing, was in the batter's box. On this night, the young flamethrower won, Price struck out Drew on a nasty 1-and-2 fastball that sizzled near the low and outside corner.

Drew disagreed with the call.

"I don't think I went around," said the right fielder. "I think that at-bat was kind of taken away from me. If I check my swing, ask the third base umpire. Worry about balls and strikes and let the third base umpire do his job. That's the only thing that hurt me. I thought that I held up."

His opinion doesn't count. What does is what Price did, because when he struck out Mark Kotsay and Jason Varitek in the ninth, after an inning-opening walk to Jason Bay, and got Jed Lowrie to hit into a forceout at second base, the young lefthander had nailed down his team's incredible journey into the World Series. He had gotten the final two outs in the 11th inning to earn the victory in the Game 2 slugfest and now he had an even more impressive save to go along with it, which is why the crowd of reporters came his way.

"That's the moment I've lived for my entire life," Price said. "In the three years I was at Vanderbilt, my college coaches, they prepped me for that moment, so I owe them."

Take it from the kid from Wolfeboro, the honor was all his.

"I told the Rays people when they drafted him [No. 1 overall in 2007], you have no idea what you are getting," Corbin said. "This kid is the ultimate, ultimate kid. He goes far beyond what he does on the field. It extends into the clubhouse - and there's a lot more to come. David doesn't have the 'disease of me.' It's not about him and never will be about him."

The lines of communication between Corbin and Price have remained open since the lefthander left Vanderbilt, but in the last week or so the tone was a bit more serious.

"He texted me Sunday," Corbin said. "Told me that he wants the ball. I asked him if he told Maddon that and he said, 'Every day.' And what did Maddon say, I asked. David said, 'He just smiled.' "

That smile was even wider late Sunday night and well into yesterday morning. Champagne in his hair, but a profound joy in his heart, Maddon talked of the youngest and most inexperienced of his pitchers who nailed down a victory for a team filled with young and inexperienced players.

"I felt really good about David tonight," Maddon said. "This young man is composed beyond his years, he really is, and I think you've all had a chance to understand that if you've even had one conversation with him. It was just about throwing strikes, and he's been a strike thrower his whole life."

Maddon concedes that Price was his "ace in the pocket," and when he showed it Sunday night in the biggest game the Tampa Bay franchise has ever been part of, well, it trumped the Red Sox's full-house of heart, soul, mystique, experience, and pride.

There should have been mixed emotions for a diehard Red Sox fan, but there were none. And for that, Tim Corbin offers not a hint of an apology.

"I'll always be a Red Sox fan," said the Vanderbilt coach and New Hampshire native. "Until my kids play against them. You always root for your kids."