David Price may return after missing just two starts

David Price insists that his latest elbow issue is not related to the one that forced him to miss two months at the start of the 2017 season, and the progress he has made thus far seems to back that up.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora said over the weekend that Price could come off the disabled list as early as next Friday, when the Boston begins a three-game series against the Houston Astros.

Alex Cora suggested that David Price could come off the injured list to start against Houston later this week.

— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) May 12, 2019

Price last pitched on May 2, and he allowed three earned runs over six innings. He went on the disabled list a few days later and has already missed one start, but a return next weekend would mean only missing two turns in the rotation.

Price dealt with an elbow issue during spring training in 2017, and he also had numbness in his pitching hand at one point last season. There was talk that his love for video games may have contributed to it, and that became a big source of frustration for a player who has had a notoriously bad relationship with fans and media in Boston. Of course, a lot of that changed when he pitched well in the postseason and helped the Red Sox win a World Series.

The Red Sox have described the latest injury as elbow tendonitis, so it will be worth monitoring going forward to see if it acts up again.