It is, in hindsight, rather humorous to think that among the items Jed Hoyer and Theo Epstein packed for their Thanksgiving 2003 visit to the Curt Schilling household was a DVD presentation designed to convince a fly-ball pitcher that he could succeed at a hitter's haven, Fenway Park.
Schilling, in the wake of last night's eight-inning, five-hit, one-run masterpiece in a 9-5 beating of the Yankees, was asked if there's a reason why his home/road splits are so decidedly different.
``Just I'm not consistent," he said. ``No real reason."
Schilling, in six road starts, is 2-2 this season with a 5.30 ERA, 10 home runs allowed, 33 K's, and 8 walks. At home: 4-0, 1.86 ERA, 0 HRs, 25 K's, 1 walk.
Perhaps he needed to come back here, after five difficult starts (2-2, 6.53 ERA), four of which were outside of Fenway, which was packed last night with 36,342 fans. Perhaps, as he put it, his success last night was merely because ``I pitched better."
Before Keith Foulke staged a ninth-inning laser show (5 hits, 4 runs, 2 HRs, 2 doubles), Schilling had the Red Sox on the way to a 9-1 pasting of a Yankee team that, as Schilling put it, ``has been ravaged with some real significant injuries."
The Sox capitalized, putting a hurt on Chien-Ming Wang (6+ innings, 9 hits, 7 runs) and scoring in bunches (four runs in the third inning, three in the seventh, two in the eighth), with David Ortiz and Manny Ramírez knocking in three runs apiece.
But it all began with Schilling, who was thankful to look out and not see the usual Yankee sluggers. How different is this lineup?
``Well, I don't know," Schilling said in response to that question. ``Who's playing right for [Gary] Sheffield?"
``[Melky] Cabrera," a writer answered.
``OK," Schilling said. ``Who's playing for [Hideki] Matsui?
``[Terrence] Long," the writer said.
``OK," Schilling said. ``That's a question you don't need me to answer. That's a drastically different team."
But Schilling still had to cut through batters Nos. 1-7 and he did early, setting a tone. He set down the first eight he faced in 26 pitches, fanning half of them.
His only difficulty came in the third, with two outs, when Cabrera doubled to left and Johnny Damon blooped a lingering splitter to right for a run-scoring single. Derek Jeter then singled to right, advancing Damon to second for Giambi.
Schilling went 0-and-2 to Giambi, who leads the majors in pitches per plate appearance (4.49). And he showed why. He battled back to 3-and-2, fouling off one pitch that Schilling admitted was a genuine mistake.
``I made some mistakes tonight they didn't hammer," Schilling said.
Giambi, who popped up to Mike Lowell on the 10th pitch of the at-bat, said those mistakes were few.
