A SAD END TO A RECORD SEASON ...
Schilling dominates the Yankees at Fenway

May 22, 2006 ... Schilling, in the wake of tonight's eight-inning, five-hit, one-run masterpiece in a 9-5 beating of the Yankees, at home is 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.

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  the Yankee team. Him and hit him in the theater hundred feet the children the front in the stomach with the ball, but one of your and you could do it he 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 Ramirez knocking in three runs apiece. But it all began with Schilling, who was thankful to look out and not see the usual Yankee sluggers.

Schilling 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, 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. Giambi popped up to Mike Lowell on the 10th pitch of the at- bat.

Schilling worked eight innings for just the second time in 10 starts but kept his pitch count under 100 (it was 99) for just the second time. His offense, meanwhile, worked Wang, sending seven men to the plate in the third.

Alex Cora made an out before four consecutive Sox reached and scored. Kevin Youkilis worked a seven-pitch walk. Mark Loretta singled to right. Up came Ortiz, and Wang fell behind, 3-and-0. A basic if unconventional tenet of Sox manager Terry Francona is that to hit on 3-and-0 is not a bad idea at all, if the proper hitter is up in the proper situation. The Sox, to that point, were 4 for 4 on the season when swinging on 3-and-0 counts. Ortiz, given the green light, went down to get a Wang fastball, didn't attempt to overdo it, and sliced it to left center. Make it 5 for 5.

Ortiz, who gave the Sox a 2-1 lead with that double, is 10 for 13 on 3-and-0 counts with four doubles, three home runs, and 9 RBIs since joining the Sox. That brought up Ramirez, who was 1 for 11 in the weekend series in Philadelphia and 4 for his last 27. He fell behind, 0- and-2, but when you have 442 career home runs, you can hit a mistake in almost any count. If not for the wind blowing to right center, Ramirez's blast would have gone to dead center. Instead, it tore through the wind and drifted just a bit, landing a handful of rows deep in the right-center-field bleachers. Ramirez's eighth blast of the year and 443d of his career made it Sox 4, Yankees 1.

The game felt over at that point, but the Sox kept adding, three in the seventh (all charged to Wang, who didn't get an out in the inning). Willie Harris began the inning by singling to right. Cora, who played a flawless game in the field, turning two double plays and making an Alex-Gonzalez-like play on a ball up the middle early on, executed a clinical drag bunt. Harris also accounted for a run with a sacrifice fly.

Those runs didn't seem meaningful until Foulke began giving up loud hits to all fields. Handed a 9-1 lead, he gave up a leadoff single, got two outs, then went homer-homer-double-double.

Wily Mo Pena, scheduled to bat eighth and play center field, was scratched for precautionary reasons with a sore left wrist after taking batting practice. Pena said he felt pain on the outside of his left wrist and hand last week in Baltimore but did not know exactly when he injured himself. It's the same wrist he sprained on a hard check swing last August with Cincinnati, costing him four games. He also injured the wrist two years ago.

Of all the progress made by the Red Sox yesterday, perhaps the most meaningful was witnessed by only a few stadium employees and media members on a quiet Fenway field just after 3 p.m. There, Gabe Kapler and Coco Crisp played catch. They hit on the field. They ran the bases. And after all that, each, at long last, offered the semblance of a timetable for a return.

Crisp, who was taking 70-80 soft-toss swings per day over the weekend, took batting practice yesterday, 25 swings from each side of the plate. He also ran the bases, and though he was fatigued, he feels ready to go out on a rehab assignment by week's end, perhaps in a day or two.