WELL here are the Red Sox, ankle deep now already in an 86th straight failed attempt at a World Series championship and trying to pull up socks that aren’t hiding anything.
Curt Schilling has a bum ankle that last night turned into six Yankee runs in three innings. And neither Boston nor Schilling was braced for this. Underneath that contraption he wore after suffering a second injury to the same ankle that he had been able to ignore for 21 wins this season, had been shot enough painkiller that the Red Sox hoped he wouldn’t feel a thing. But Red Sox Nation went dead inside as Schilling got held upside down over the balcony by one bad ankle by goodfellas, who made Boston pay up again.
“It’s popping, is what it’s doing, and causing me to, I guess in a nutshell, to think about things when my goal is to stay focused on the pitch – I wasn’t able to do that consistently,” he said. “I was landing about a foot short of normal.”
He was in the 90 mph ranges for only the first two batters, got clobbered for doubles by Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui and a ringing single by Bernie Williams that set up a two-run first.
“I’m not sure I can think of any scenario more enjoyable than making 55,000 people from New York shut up,” Schilling had said Tuesday, and 55,000 people who were assuredly not shutting up suddenly couldn’t think of anything more enjoyable than watching a guy largely responsible for their 2001 World Series agony getting totally torched.
In the third, Derek Jeter smacked Schilling into center, Alex Rodriguez beat out a roller to deep short and after missing badly on 3-2 breaking pitch to Sheffield to load the bases, Schilling grooved a fastball, down just a little to Matsui, who hit the base of the right field wall even harder than this was for Beantown to take.
Three runs scored, and at the end of the inning, while the crowd serenaded “Who’s Your Daddy? Terry Francona cried “uncle.”
“He’s been looking forward to this situation, this type of game for a long time,” Francona had said. “He can kick it up a notch and the game doesn’t quicken up on him. The game doesn’t surprise him.”
The game sure surprised the hell out of us, however, like it undoubtedly did for a pitcher who had been given up more than two runs only twice in 12 previous postseason starts. Last night, he was gone in 58 pitches, not much consolation in the possibility that now he could come back in Game 4 and Game 7, because he doesn’t even want to if he can’t do better than this.
“We’ll talk about it today, but I’m not going to go out there on wishful thinking,” he said. And now was it wishful thinking all along that the Red Sox could end the curse?
“At this point during the season the best players in the world step up. I have the ability to do that,” Schilling said.
Seemed like a fair thing to say toting a postseason record of 7-1, 1.74 in 12 starts. Schilling gave up four runs in 211/3 innings against the Yankees in 2001 as Arizona won the 2001 World Series in only the franchise’s fourth season. Maybe the Diamondbacks will win another sometime over the next 82 years, but you never know about these things.
Ask the Red Sox who, tired of the wait, brought in a tried-and-true Deliverer, who last night took his total package with him back to the plant for what Boston only prays can be fast repairs.