THE "IDIOTS" REVERSE THE CURSE
Curt Schilling stops another skid

July 18, 2004 ...  With the Sox in danger of joining sore-legged Manny Ramirez in the breakdown lane, Curt Schilling held steady and limited the American League's best hitting team, the Anaheim Angels, to three hits and a run in eight innings in a 6-2 win that gave the Sox a split of their four-game series here.

David Ortiz, who may not be able to avert the detour of a suspension, hit a sixth-inning three-run home run, his second homer in two games since his Friday night meltdown, which enabled the Sox to overcome an early 1-0 deficit created by Bengie Molina's third inning home run. Gabe Kapler, Ramirez's stand-in in left field, hit a home run to lead off a three-run seventh that also featured Johnny Damon's double, Ortiz's RBI single, and a run-scoring triple by Nomar Garciaparra.

Pitching for the first time in weeks without the injection of a painkiller, Schilling improved his record to 12-4 after winning his fifth straight decision. Ten times Schilling has taken the mound after a Sox loss. Eight times in those games, the Sox have won, with Schilling getting credit for the victory in seven of them.

Angels starter John Lackey struck out three Sox in the first, whiffing Garciaparra after Ortiz's two out triple, then whiffed two more in the second and two more in the fifth. That gave him seven strikeouts, a season high.

Meanwhile, Schilling, though saying he felt a bit sluggish on an afternoon when the game-time temperature was 90 degrees, faced just two batters over the minimum through the first five innings, but one of them was Molina, who drove a hanging breaking ball into the left- field seats with one out in the third.

In the sixth, Damon worked a one out walk, Mark Bellhorn grounded a single through the right side, and Ortiz drove a cut fastball at least 420 feet to right. That was a face-saving blow for the Sox, whose temperature rose briefly when Lackey hit the next batter, Garciaparra, in the left forearm. Plate umpire Kevin Kelley issued a warning to both teams, which left Angels manager Mike Scioscia highly agitated in the eighth, when Schilling, who did not walk a batter, hit Molina in the hip but was not ejected. Scioscia, who didn't think Lackey's warning was warranted because he thought the pitcher slipped trying to throw the same pitch Garciaparra had popped up on a previous at-bat, was ejected when he asked why Schilling wasn't automatically tossed.

In what is rapidly appearing to be a test of wills between a manager accused of being too soft and a player known to go his own way, Manny Ramirez told manager Terry Francona yesterday morning that his hamstring was still too sore for him to play in the field. So Francona left him out of the lineup for the third straight game.

A CT scan on Tim Wakefield's right shoulder was negative and did not show any fracture of the scapula, but while the knuckleballer said he hoped to make his scheduled start in Thursday's day-night doubleheader against the Orioles in Fenway Park, he wasn't making any promises.