I feel somewhat inspired to write this article, this game will hopefully be Curt Schilling’s stamp on how the 2007 season will go for him and the Red Sox. His last outing and first on this young season pitted the confident veteran against a pitcher who received a huge pay raise and a position based solely on being the number one guy, at a price of not going to a contender.
Schilling looks to gain a little more command as he lacked it on a good number of pitches in his four innings against KC.

Against Texas he will look to keep the ball away from the middle of the plate and pick his spots. Look for #38 to not sit back. He will not be afraid of an above average Texas Rangers lineup that boasts the likes of Sammy Sosa, who looks to make a comeback as he has been given a chance to play full-time once again. The lineup looks like this, two lefty batters to leadoff both veteran contact hitters, both signing in the off-season. Center fielder Kenny Lofton has maintained a steady number one spot in the batting order for numerous clubs over the years, lastly playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers in ’06. Lofton continues to be one of my favorites.

Frank Catalanotto had a fine number of at bats as the fourth outfielder and designated hitter for the Toronto Blue Jays in the ’06 season. Halfway through the year OF Reed Johnson emerged as the Blue Jays more than competent leadoff hitter to bolster their lineup with a contact guy and a terrific two-strike hitter. We all know Vernon Wells, RF Alex Rios is young and just keeps improving year after year. I did expect Toronto to make a play for Frank, but they decided that they would use a full-time DH instead of a platoon of guys, thus Frank Thomas was signed.

Michael Young also a former Blue Jays product has carved quite a spot in Texas as their number three hitter and man up the middle at shortstop. He is followed by switch-hitting first-baseman Mark Teixeira who is the big hitter in this lineup from years past. Those seem to be the biggest concerns for Curt Schilling and the Red Sox in games ahead versus the Rangers.

The start of the game has shown that Vicente Padilla can handle his own against the whole order of the BoSox except for David Ortiz as Padilla quickly retires Sox hitters but is touched for one run as Ortiz homered to right.
#38 swiftly blows away Lofton with three fastballs. Switches to a change to start Catalanotto off who drives it deep to right near the foul pole almost foul but it’s gone to tie this game up early 1-1. Frank is not a guy you want to give up a long ball to as he’ll only drive out a good dozen yearly.
Schilling continues to strike out batters in the 2nd inning. With “BIG Papi” David Ortiz taking care of the offensive side driving his second homerun of the game to right field over the head and wall of Sammy Sosa, 3-1 Red Sox.

Schilling starts the third by walking Kenny Lofton. The one guy you don’t want to walk, especially now as Catalanotto has homered already in the game. Lofton is truly the antithesis of what you’d like to see on the base paths as a pitcher. Though Lofton doesn’t shine on this play as he gets doubled up , as he took a long run on a deep fly to Coco Crisp who runs down the Michael Young fly and quickly doubles off Kenny at first to get Schills’ out of the inning.

Listening to things said by Terry Francona the manager of the Red Sox I gather he is confident in his star and ace Curt Schilling. That he will make a good start and continue that throughout the year. As for Papelbon, he was non-apologetic for confusing media about the starter non-starter status of now Closer Jonathan Papelbon, who stated as long as he’s healthy that is the best spot for him to be.

An interesting stat from last season shows that the only player to hit more homeruns than Ortiz after the all-star break was none other than Texas’ Mark Teixeira, who had 24 but only adding 9 in the first half thus not gaining major attention for his homerun attributes over the season.

This year Terry Francona seems to want to use some hitters for moving runners ahead by sacrificing them over. Boston had only 22 sacrifices last season. Look for them to easily equal and pass this number in ’07 as they use Lugo, Pedroia and Cora mostly in those type situations if they can help it.

Cruising through five, Schilling gets to avoid the feeling of kissing his sister, a quote stated in his blog. Manny Ramirez hammers another pitch to deep center that the cold climate cuts down at the wall for two nice over the shoulder catches by Lofton.

This game has strictly been a pitching dual since hitters have not been able to manufacture any runs and have had to rely on the long balls, two by Ortiz and one by “the Cat”. Those are the only blemishes today for Vicente Padilla and Schilling through seven.
Padilla’s night finishes with 7 innings pitched, 4 k’s, 1 bb, and 4 hits on three earned runs which usually means he is the winning pitcher but not tonight versus Schillings 7 ip, 6 so, 1 walk with four hits and one earned run and is in position for the win.

Joel Pineiro is summoned to come in for #38 to setup the ninth for closer Jonathan Papelbon. Schilling seemed to be able to go at least eight strong but they realized it’s still early and I agree with the move to the pen. Pineiro is being groomed it seems as a go to mid-reliever type pitcher. As we can’t forget that Mike Timlin when healthy is the air-apparent to setup Papelbon.
Pineiro starts by walking the first two batters and Lofton puts down a sac-bunt, but Cora is late covering first and Lowell eats it. The bases are loaded with none out and we have a pitching change. Javier Lopez is in to face Frank Catalanotto to have a lefty-lefty match up, while Papelbon continues to warm. The move is negated as they sub in the right-handed hitter in Cruz. A laser line out by Cruz is dropped by Youkilis, but thrown to second for an out. A run scores and now runners are on the corners and Papelbon is beckoned.

58 blew away SS Michael Young for 2 outs and quickly pops up Teixeira to get into the ninth with a one run lead 3-2.
Boston seemed to be building toward something in the ninth but Drew was thrown out going to third as he slid right passed the bag to make it an easy call for the umpire.

Bottom of the ninth, Pap’ vs. Sosa up by one, he popped up Sammy who swung under that one for out #1.
Boom, blew one by Blalock for the strikeout at 96 mph after throwing four consecutive splitters and finishing him off with a fastball, two down nobody on. Two high fastballs and Wilkerson is caught looking after swinging thru the first two offerings on a pitch right down the middle of the plate.

Schilling gets the win (1-1) with Padilla losing (0-2) and Papelbon took the save (2), Red Sox WIN 3-2.

Written by Scott Penny