Too bad. While Curt Schilling, the pride of Yavapai (Ariz.) Junior College, tossed three scoreless innings for Pawtucket in his first rehab start, a significant step in what the Sox hope will be a re entry into the division race, Gabbard -- who in an earlier era would have been called "Gabby" because he's anything but -- held the White Sox to three hits and a run in seven innings. That was a splendid encore to the three-hit shutout Gabbard tossed at the Royals last Monday night, and deserving of the standing ovation he received from the crowd of 36,283 at Fenway Park after he'd warmed up at the start of the eighth, before he was taken out.
The entire Gabbard family wasn't blacked out. His mother and father drove up, his brother Kyle and sister-in-law Stacy and niece Addison unexpectedly showed up, and he was in for another surprise when he got a knock at the door of the hotel room in which he and his girlfriend are staying. "I was about to yell, because I thought it was the cleaning lady," Gabbard said. "But it was my youngest sister, Katie-Jo."
Gabbard has now won his first five career starts at home, only the third Sox pitcher to do so. Dave "Boo" Ferriss did it in 1945, while George Winter did it in 1901. Winter gave away nothing to Ferriss in the nickname category. He was known as "Sassafras," and was also a participant in what historians have called the first on-field fight (1903) between the Yankees and Sox (or the Highlanders and Americans, as they were known).
"Very important, meaningful, and exciting," said Sox manager Terry Francona of Gabbard, who did not go to a three-ball count until the seventh inning, when he also issued his only walk, to Jermaine Dye.
Crisp, meanwhile, who had drawn pregame raves from Francona for his fielding ("This guy's defense has been phenomenal, as good a center field as you're going to see"), matched his career high with five RBIs, two in a seven-run seventh, Boston's biggest inning of the season. Crisp has become an RBI machine of late, driving in five runs twice in 16 days (also against Tampa Bay July 5) and collecting 16 RBIs in his last 14 games.
