Last season he never allowed more than seven runs. He gave up seven on two occasions -- April 22 at Toronto in 7 2/3 innings and July 23 vs. the Yankees in 5 1/3 innings.
The difficulty, as it often is with tuneups of this kind, is how to decipher those totals. Whom and what to believe? Your eyes, your ears, the stat sheet? Or nothing? Tim Wakefield lasted just two-thirds of an inning (6 hits, 2 walks, 6 earned runs) in his final spring outing at Arizona, then held the Yankees to three hits in 6 2/3 innings Wednesday at Yankee Stadium.
Schilling's interpretation: "The performance and the way I felt were at opposite ends of the spectrum. I'm not pleased. I gave up seven runs on 11 hits. There's nothing to be pleased about. But physically I don't have any questions in my mind about how I'm going to do or how I'm going to feel. I'm ready to go."
Schilling's command was not what it was two appearances ago, when he pitched against this team in an exhibition at City of Palms Park in Fort Myers, Fla. That day, Schilling painted the outside corner to righthanded hitters with encouraging accuracy in an empty stadium.
Yesterday, he was a few inches off on a few key pitches before an announced crowd of 10,150 at Victory Field (capacity, 15,696), though the stadium was less than half full.
He allowed a homer on an 0-and-1 fastball to the second batter of the game, Edwards Guzman, who has four career major league home runs. In the third, he gave up another solo shot, to Ryan Doumit, who has 32 career minor league home runs and no major league experience. Both were fastballs.
Schilling allowed four runs on five hits in the second inning. He was tagged for a leadoff double crushed to right-center, then four singles sandwiched around a strikeout. In the fifth he fell behind 3 and 1 and allowed a leadoff triple he later referred to as a single, presumably because left fielder Chip Ambres took what looked like a bad angle to the ball. That runner later scored for the seventh Indianapolis run.
