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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Sixteen starts into his first season with the Boston Red Sox, David Price isn't under any illusions about the quality of his performance. "It's not acceptable," he said. Not by Price's standards, at least, and certainly not for his price tag. Along with his seven-year contract worth $217 million, the richest ever for a pitcher, comes an expectation of consistent excellence. Instead, Price has delivered a 4.68 ERA that ranks 33rd among 40 pitchers who qualify for the American League ERA title, and he has allowed at least six earned runs in four starts, more stinkers than in any of his seven full big league seasons. But Price is nothing if not self-aware, a quality he learned during his formative years with the Tampa Bay Rays. While his natural ability made him one of the league's best pitchers, it was his desire to continually evolve that enabled him to maintain that status. In 2012, when Price went 20-5 with a 2.56 ERA and won the Cy Young Award, his fastball averaged 95.5 mph, making him the hardest-throwing pitcher in the majors that year. Yet he insisted on working with Rays pitching coach Jim Hickey to refine his changeup, so much so that he felt comfortable increasing its usage from 12.3 percent in 2012 to 16.8 percent in 2013 at the expense of that blazing heater. "Hickey always had confidence in me to be able to make adjustments throughout the season to go out there and try new pitches," Price said the other day at Tropicana Field as his former team took batting practice. "He always had my back in that sense. He never said, 'Hey, what you're doing is working. Let's just stay the course.' He understood that I want to evolve, always. And it wasn't even to the point where I thought velocity was going to leave. It was me wanting to be a complete pitcher, being able to locate my fastball on both sides of the plate with velocity and then be able to throw the other pitches for strikes as well. That was something I wanted for myself and something I worked really hard at." It also made Price slightly less of a risky proposition to some teams that considered signing him as a free agent last winter. Price turned 30 last August, an age at which many power pitchers must begin thinking about changing their style. Mid-90s velocity doesn't last forever, after all, and because Price was seeking a contract that would take him into his late-30s, scouts were looking to see that he understood how to get hitters out without merely overpowering them. Sure enough, Price threw his changeup a career-high 22.7 percent of the time last season, according to FanGraphs. And although his fastball still averaged 94.2 mph, seventh-best among AL pitchers, he used it less frequently than ever, 53.4 percent of the time. Price's evolution, or at least his recognition of the need to evolve, helped sway Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, who witnessed it up close. Dombrowski acquired Price with the Detroit Tigers at the trade deadline in 2014, and although he dealt Price to the Toronto Blue Jays last July 31, he pushed hard to talk risk-averse Red Sox principal owner John Henry into shelling out big bucks to sign him last winter. "David had the intelligence and the instincts to [evolve] before he had to," Dombrowski said in spring training. "Nothing is for certain, but you look at him now and see a pitcher who can be successful over years to come." Said one National League talent evaluator: "I'll give Price credit. He started to show his changeup, with a purpose at times for the right reasons. The fundamental thing for me with guys like him that are power guys is what kind of pitcher are they going to be without their fastball. Do they have a definite feel for what they're trying to do with the baseball, and do they have enough imagination to get to that second career? Because all the great ones, all those Hall of Famers or close-to-Hall-of-Fame types, they go into their second career and become better pitchers." None of that is any consolation, of course, to Red Sox fans who care only that Price pitches better for the remainder of the season, beginning with Wednesday night's series finale against the Rays. Price insists he's healthy, even though his average fastball velocity is down to 92.4 mph, according to Fangraphs. Although he recently put together an eight-start stretch in which he posted a 2.47 ERA, he has not yet had a scoreless outing. Based on game score, his best performance of the season -- a 14-strikeout, eight-inning start April 26 in Atlanta --was tied for the 153rd-best start by any pitcher this season and the fourth-best by a Red Sox starter. And last Friday night in Texas, Price got rocked for six runs on 12 hits in only 2⅓ innings, which statistically is the third-worst start of his career. The Red Sox signed Price to be the ace they haven't had since Jon Lester was traded midway through the 2014 season. If anything, though, he has fallen in line with a rotation that isn't nearly good enough for a franchise that has designs on returning to the postseason for the first time since winning the World Series in 2013. In early May, with help from second baseman Dustin Pedroia, Price identified a flaw in his mechanics that was causing his legs to not be in sync with his arm. The problem now, Price says, has been finishing off hitters. He has allowed 51 batters to reach a full count, and of those, 25 have reached base (10 hits, 15 walks). But the best strategy against Price has been jumping on first pitches. Hitters who have put the first pitch in play against him are 24-for-48 (.500) with six homers. And while Price has projected a sense of calm, even after his roughest outings, he wants you to know he hasn't been satisfied with the way his season has gone. If his years in Tampa Bay are any indication, he will continue to evolve to stay ahead of hitters. "Just because I don't display my frustration in front of everybody, it doesn't mean that I don't care, by any means," Price said. "It's not that you're OK with it or you accept it. It's just you learn how to move forward. That's what I've done. I've had some tough games, absolutely. I've definitely had more tough games this year than I have in any other year, and that's tough, for sure. I've had too many of those bad games, and it's not acceptable. "[Boston] is definitely a tough place to play, and I knew that coming in. They have high expectations, and I definitely have high expectations for myself. I want to go out there and throw the baseball the way that I know I can and the way that I have in my career. I know I will do that. I'm healthy. I know I'm going to throw big games for us this year and the rest of my career. I know good things are going to happen for me." The sooner the better for a Red Sox team that needs Price as much as ever.
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