As David Price walked off the field Saturday afternoon following the Blue Jays’ latest offensive drubbing at the Rogers Centre, the 30-year-old lefty clapped in the direction of the sold-out crowd and offered a few appreciative fist pumps before ducking into the dugout.

Price has been a Blue Jay for barely a month but the size and volume of the crowds that have greeted him since his arrival in Toronto have left him in awe. He described the atmosphere of his debut earlier this month as the best he had ever pitched in.

The Jays were welcomed home this weekend from their recent road trip with another round of sellouts, as excitement builds for the franchise’s first pennant race in 22 years. Sunday’s game will be the seventh straight sellout and 13th of the season, while the average per-game figure recently climbed above 31,000 — nearly 2,000 more than last year.

The players, to a man, will tell you they feed off the energy of the bigger crowds.

“To some degree we’re all show-boaters, we like to play in front of people,” said outfielder Kevin Pillar. “We like to do incredible things in front of big crowds and there’s no denying the extra adrenalin rush you get with a sold-out crowd and the extra energy you’re able to find despite being tired or sore or whatever the circumstances may be. You want to elevate your game.”

But does playing in front of bigger, louder and more supportive home crowds actually have any impact on an athlete’s performance?

In short, it depends on the athlete, says Katherine Tamminen, assistant professor of sport psychology at the University of Toronto.

“Some athletes will see that as a lot of pressure and they almost feel like they have to perform well, so they’re trying to avoid failure,” she said. “Whereas other athletes see it as really supportive and they feel like they’re being lifted up and that provides the motivation to achieve good performances rather than trying to avoid failing.”

“Really what it all boils down to is the athlete’s perception,” said Jeremy Jamieson, a psychology professor at the University of Rochester. “If they think it helps it actually probably will help.”

Jamieson said the key is whether the athlete feels he or she has the ability to meet the demands of the situation. If they are confident in their ability to meet the challenge, the crowd’s influence will motivate them to try to do well; if they fear they can’t meet the challenge they will try perceive the crowd as a “threat” and try not to disappoint them.

“It’s the difference between trying to win and trying not to lose,” he said. “People try not to screw up, essentially. But by trying not to screw up, people screw up.”

Jose Bautista said he’s never felt added pressure playing in front of bigger home crowds.

“It’s less pressure,” he said. “I mean, they’re there to support you. If you’re on the visiting side it could be intimidating going into a hostile environment.”

The Jays have performed well at home all season, posting a 42-23 record at the Rogers Centre compared to a 31-33 mark on the road. But the reason for that may have more to do with the home crowd’s effect on the umpires rather than the players.

Tobias Moskowitz, an economist and co-author of “Scorecasting: The hidden influences behind how sports are played and games are won,” found the most discernible advantage home teams have is in getting more favourable calls from officials.

“Naturally we like to please people, especially when there are forty or fifty-thousand screaming people who are focused on every decision you make,” he said. “It’s sort of a natural human condition to alleviate that kind of pressure.”

To study the effect in baseball, Moskowitz looked at ball-strike calls by home plate umpires and found that for borderline pitches in the same location there was a “huge strike-ball discrepancy” between home and visiting batters.

“What we found was the bigger the crowd, the louder the crowd, the closer the crowd is to the field of play, all of those things heighten that discrepancy.”

Moskowitz said it’s possible that, as many players say, they feel better playing in front of their home fans. “But it’s hard to find that show up in terms of their measured statistics.”

Bautista said he didn’t think playing in front of bigger home crowds changed his performance.

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“But I think it helps feeling the support behind you and the energy level and the excitement. That gets us more excited, also. It’s just human nature.”

But, he added, he’s never been in a pennant race before, so it’s hard to know.

“I don’t have enough experience,” he said. “We’ll see.”

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