David Price, free from his past, takes the ball for World Series Game 2

For years, he would lug his history and poor track record out to the mound with him. He would have preferred to leave it in the dugout or the clubhouse, but out it went with him, uninvited, determined to follow him to his biggest starts, draped over him, never far away.

His futility would be chronicled at the start of broadcasts, talked about incessantly on radio, written about endlessly.

Winless in (fill in the blank) postseason starts.

It became his unofficial middle name.

But last week, David Price finally did something about it. He tossed six shutout innings against the defending world champion Houston Astros, in their own ballpark, and pitched the Red Sox to the 2018 American League pennant.

That was the goal. But as a significant byproduct of that win, Price also managed to change his own history. Those six shutout innings got him his first postseason win as a starting pitcher, some 10 years after he made his playoff debut.

His teammates toasted him, praised him to the sky. Outside the visitor's clubhouse in the bowels of Minute Maid Park, a large contingent of Red Sox employees and relatives and friends of players chanted his name.

In the aftermath, as the champagne sprayed and the music blared, it was sometimes difficult to know which was the bigger event: the Red Sox winning their first pennant in five years or Price winning his first postseason start.

Price exhibited joy, and yes, a little relief, too, that he had, once and for all, shed his baggage, already envisioning next spring, next September, as a time when he would no longer have to answer that question.

And now, as he prepares to start Game 2 of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers Wednesday night, the topic is off the table, leaving Price to go about his usual business, free from the pre-existing narrative, the invisible but unmistakable burden lifted.

"I guess "lighter" is a good word, yeah,'' said Price on Tuesday. "(Monday) we had media day. I didn't have to -- I got to look forward to it for the first time in a long time. Today it's definitely a weight lifted off of me for sure. Not like food tastes better or anything like that. But it was time. And I'm definitely glad that the time came and we moved past it. And I look forward to doing the same thing tomorrow.''

Of course, last Thursday's win in Houston didn't come by accident. The day before the clincher, he played long toss, then warmed up periodically as the Red Sox white-knuckled their way through a shaky multi-inning relief outing from Craig Kimbrel.

But in the course of all that throwing, Price made a couple of undisclosed adjustments to his delivery, which served to add some zip to his fastball and better depth to his changeup.

"Just something that makes my delivery just flow a little bit better,'' said Price, in as general a way as he could explain the changes, "kind of put my arm more on time for every throw. Just put me in a position to execute every pitch.''

Whatever he did, it worked. Price dotted the edges of the plate with his fastball and worked his changeup in the bottom of the strike zone. He got more swing-and-misses from the Astros hitters, and when they did make contact, it was often feeble.

A win by Price and the Red Sox Wednesday night would give Boston a commanding 2-0 lead as the series shifts to Los Angeles. But after periods of overthrowing and trying too hard in his postseason starts, Price won't think too much about what's at stake.

Instead, he'll treat it like any other start because, for perhaps the first time in his career, that's what it will be.

"I always enjoy doing this,'' he said. "Just because I failed in October for about nine straight years, it didn't take away my passion from baseball. This is something I fell in love with whenever I was two years old. So the ups and the downs, I knew they were going to happen. I've definitely had many more downs than ups in October, but I've got a lot of baseball left.

"Hopefully I have a whole lot of October baseball left. This is why I came to Boston. I knew we would be in this position, year in and year out. So I'm happy that we have made it to this point and everybody in our clubhouse, we all want (three) more wins.''