David Price has managed to become a staple on selected Yankees Classics episodes. Despite career winning numbers against the Yankees, there’s the game in which Price, with Tampa Bay, surrendered Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit, a home run bomb to left.

There also are more recent versions, including the game in which Price, as a Tiger, labors in a Detroit blizzard, surrendering season highs of 10 hits and eight runs, an effort that led to the unsightly two-game numbers of 16 earned runs through 4 ¹/₃ innings for his two most-recent appearances against the Yankees before Saturday.

So Price heeded a handwritten note he put in his locker stall at the Stadium: “If you don’t like it, pitch better.”

Suffice it to say, Price pitched better. And you also can assume the Yankees want to burn their latest tape of Price pitching with the Blue Jays.

“It’s something we always said in Tampa. It’s something James Shields would always say,” Price said. “I’ve had guys text me they’d been taken out after seven innings, 90 pitches. ‘Look, if you don’t like it, pitch better.’ Go seven in 80 pitches and you’ll be back out there for the eighth. It goes both if you’re throwing the ball well or not so well. It’s something I live by.”

So in his second start with Toronto, Price, acquired at the trade deadline from Detroit, pitched more like his Cy Young-winning form than like a punching bag for the Yankees. He threw seven scoreless innings, allowed just three singles, walked three and struck out seven as Toronto crawled to within 2 ½ games of the Yankees in the AL East with a 6-0 victory.

“One of his good days,” the Yankees’ Chris Young said. “One of his days when he had control of everything. He threw three pitches for strikes and when he’s able to do that, he’s a tough at-bat.”

Yeah, he pitched better. But Price said he felt pressure because Toronto has been on a roll. Now that is pressure.

“To me, it’s tougher to go out and throw the ball well when your team is playing really well,” said Price (11-4). “That puts more pressure than trying to stop a losing streak and trying to turn it around. … You don’t want to be the guy that starts the losing streak.”

So Price went out and, as Yankees manager Joe Girardi said, he was “just being David Price. Locating. Mixing his pitches. Using his changeup, his backdoor cutter. … Just being who he is.”

And that’s a guy, Price said, who pitches as the game dictates. He doesn’t watch film. He doesn’t go over hitters with his catcher. He doesn’t sit in on meetings.

“I’m not a game-plan guy. Game plan can change, always — pitch to pitch,” Price said. “I go out there and throw my game, and if that’s not working I’ll switch it up. I want to make the hitters adjust to me.”

Well, the Yankees may have adjusted. But it wasn’t very effective.

“He’s in control out there,” said Toronto catcher and former Yankee Russell Martin, who watches enough film for both. “He knows exactly what he’s doing. He goes with his instincts.”

And those instincts are usually pretty good.

“It’s way more comfortable watching him and playing behind him than coming into the box and facing him,” Jose Bautista said, deadpan.