KANSAS CITY — David Price is dealing with some stuff right now. He’s dealing with stuff from the media, who he feels have fabricated a narrative about his misuse throughout these playoffs, when he’s been called on to warm up in the bullpen twice without entering a game.

He’s dealing with his own literal stuff, as his pitches weren’t where he wanted them to be in his ALDS start against the Texas Rangers, before they suddenly were in his first ALCS start against the Kansas City Royals.

And he’s dealing with stuff in his own head—the frustration of not being able to win a post-season start in seven attempts, of watching his best post-season outing to date unravel in a matter of minutes last weekend, and of holding a 5.24 playoff ERA that stands in stark contrast to his 3.09 number during the regular season.

“I have to prove that I can pitch at this point in the season—in the playoffs. I get that,” Price said on Thursday at Kauffman Stadium where the Blue Jays worked out ahead of Friday’s critical Game 6. “This is the time that counts. What I did in the regular season doesn’t matter.”

What Price did in the regular season was get the Blue Jays to this point, winning five games in a row in September, and 9 of his 11 Blue Jays starts in total. But to this point, his post-season starts in a Toronto uniform have been below his standard, from Game 1 of the ALDS when he didn’t have his command, to a shaky relief appearance later in that series, to, of course, ALCS Game 2.

You probably remember Game 2, when Price took the hill and looked otherworldly—until suddenly he didn’t. The 30-year-old retired 18 consecutive batters from the first inning on, until the seventh when a Ben Zobrist pop-up fell between Ryan Goins and Jose Bautista, who each thought the other guy had it—a frustrating misplay that ended up being the first sliding snowdrift of an avalanche. The Royals added five more hits behind that one, eventually scoring five runs in the inning and turning a masterful pitching performance into another stain on Price’s spotty post-season record.

“That’s what Kansas City does,” Price said. “They try to string hits together, put the pressure on the defence with their team speed, steal bases, produce runs with outs, and that’s what they’ve done really well. That’s how they won the Central. That’s how they got to the World Series last year, pitching and defence and timely hitting. And that’s what they did in the seventh inning.”

Price says those first six innings were the best he’d felt in a while, an assertion that both the results and the process support. Price lived on the edges of the strike zone that day, varying the speed, movement and location of his pitches in a way that made him practically unhittable. Even the fateful pop-up to shallow right field in the seventh left Zobrist standing in the batter’s box hanging his head, until he realized it had a chance to fall in.

Price had been struggling for a number of starts with command troubles, especially in his Game 1 start against the Rangers all the way back in the ALDS. Pitchers go through it from time to time. You can’t hit that precise spot on the corner of the zone; your stuff isn’t quite as lively as it usually is; your pitches start to bleed out over the plate.

Price says he’s confident he’s through it now, and that those first six innings of Game 2 were all the indication he needed to know he’s back on track, regardless of what happened afterwards. But he also says that if he isn’t through it, if he takes the mound in Game 6 and something feels off, he’ll still be fine.

“That’s the definition of a great pitcher—the ones that can go out there and win when they don’t have their best stuff,” Price said. “I’ve done that many times in my career. I did it this year. I know I can do it right now. I would love to have my best stuff tomorrow with my good command and being able to locate the ball all over the plate. But if not, I know my stuff is still good enough to go out there and compete and to win.”

You can’t fault his confidence, or his near-daily assertions to the press that “good things are going to happen—I know they are.” But something that would go a long way to allowing those good things to happen is for the Blue Jays to hit. While Marco Estrada’s Game 5 gem looks like a commanding victory in hindsight, the Blue Jays grasp on the game was rather tenuous through the first five innings, as the club scored just one run, on a Chris Colabello homer, before Troy Tulowitzki broke things open in the sixth.

If the Blue Jays are going to win their fifth consecutive elimination game and force a winner-takes-all Game 7 on Saturday night, they’ll have to first figure out how to score runs at Kauffman Stadium. In the first two games of this series, Toronto managed just three runs over 18 innings, as the club’s normally powerful heart of the order found promising outfield drives knocked down by the cold Kansas City air.

Blue Jays manager John Gibbons likes to talk about how his team is built to play at Rogers Centre, where screaming line drives into the second deck aren’t uncommon. But they certainly aren’t built to play at Kauffman Stadium, which was the sixth-worst stadium in the MLB for home runs this season.

“Bunt more, I don’t know,” joked Gibbons when asked what his club could do to generate more offence in Kansas City. “You can focus on different things, but you’ve still got to play to your strengths.”

It’s odd to talk about a lack of production from the Blue Jays, who led the MLB by a country mile in most offensive categories this season, but it’s a primary reason why this series currently looks the way it does. They were shut out in Game 1 and in Game 2, when the wheels came off for Price, they weren’t able to battle their way back into the game.

Of course, against Kansas City, it’s tough. With the exception of Chris Young, who pieced together a fine 4.2 innings in Game 4, the Blue Jays have almost exclusively faced pitchers who throw in the mid-to-high 90s. Even Edinson Volquez, who normally features a fastball in the 93-94 mph range, was averaging 96 on his fastball in Game 5, and threw a handful at 98. He gave way to Kelvin Herrera, who averaged 98 and hit 99.

And who will be waiting for the Blue Jays in Game 6? A 24-year-old whose fastball ranges from 97-99 mph.

“Another power arm,” Colabello said of Royals starter Yordano Ventura. “He’ll try to throw it by you. The more you see it the more you get used to it. But it’s just stuff you have to deal with. That’s the game.”

And that says it all, doesn’t it? David Price and the Blue Jays will have to deal with their stuff if they’re going to extend this series. The offence will have to figure out how to produce in this stadium; David Price will have to exorcise his post-season demons; the Blue Jays, as a unit, will have to combat the logic that says there’s a remote chance a baseball team can keep winning this many lose-and-go-home games against one of the best teams in baseball. Everyone will have to deal with their stuff.

“I think we’ve really embraced the moment,” Colabello said. “When our back was up against the wall, we’ve found a way to respond, whatever way we needed to. Whether it be offensively, defensively, pitching. So, what’s going to happen tomorrow? I expect David Price to be David Price.”