Schilling growls, then starts to bear down

The bone bruise on his right ankle that will require another MRI today has been a painful experience for Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, but he showed there was definitely nothing wrong with his backbone yesterday at Fenway Park.

After giving up second-inning solo home runs to Pat Burrell and David Bell and an RBI single to Placido Polanco an inning later, Schilling came back to the dugout angry and frustrated. Determined not to repeat his mistakes, he reached back for something extra to finish with a flourish -- striking out Jim Thome on a 97-mile-per-hour fastball that jammed the major league's home run leader to end the fifth inning and struck out three in the sixth while again hitting 97.

"I was [ticked off] after the third inning the way I was pitching," he said after the Red Sox had pulled away for a 12-3 win, improving the righthander to 10-4. "I didn't come out of the blocks like I wanted to. I warmed up horribly today. I didn't feel strong. I had a quick first inning, but they kind of forced me out of my routine as far as pitch selection. I started throwing a lot of breaking balls early and started falling behind in the count."

Schilling saw that 3-0 deficit change quickly into leads of 4-3 and 6-3, after which his goal was to keep his former team from making a comeback. "It was a huge pick-me-up," he said. "In my mind, after that [four-run third] inning, I was going back to my fastball. If I was going to give up a run, it was going to be on a pitch I wanted to make instead of allowing hitters to dictate my tempo and my selection."

When Chase Utley and David Bell stroked back-to-back one-out singles to put runners at the corners in the sixth, Schilling bore down. "I'm thinking that if I don't make some pitches, I'm out of the game and they're back in it," he said. Schilling said when he came back to strike out Jason Michaels and Todd Pratt with a combination of heat (to Michaels) and heat and a third-strike slider to Pratt, it was the first time this season he'd been able to reach back for something extra -- which had a lot to do with the way he's felt over the last week or so.

"I don't pace myself," he said. "Mechanically I'm comfortable and sound enough that I'm not going to wear myself out. Those last two hitters, it was everything I had. You're either going to make pitches or you're going to lose the game. And those last two batters were the game for me."

The Schilling-Thome confrontation in the fifth came with two outs, Bobby Abreu standing on second, and the Red Sox holding a 4-3 lead. "Jimmy's arguably the hottest hitter in the game," said Schilling. "I live for those kind of things. That's what makes the hours in the back room and the studying and preparation worth it when you go up against the best in the game and you come out ahead -- because it doesn't happen a lot. It was a big situation."

Phillies manager Larry Bowa had his hitters going after first pitches early -- and for a while, the plan was successful. Bowa said Schilling's game is to get ahead of hitters, but while Schilling didn't have his best stuff at the beginning of the game, said Bowa, "he made pitches when he had to. You're not gonna get a lot of runs off Schilling. He had a couple of jams and he reached back and he did what he had to do."

Bowa's strategy placed Schilling in danger of losing his first game at Fenway this season, but according to Red Sox manager Terry Francona, Schilling and his teammates found a way to win.

"They hit a couple of mistakes by Schill and we were down early," said Francona. "He might have gotten away from his game plan a little bit and it seemed like when we scored the [four] runs he just said, `OK, if they're going to beat me, they have to beat me doing it my way' and they weren't able to do that."

Added Francona, "I thought he really showed a lot. When he reached back in that sixth inning he was getting to be about out of gas, but I saw him hit 97. That's not just being a good pitcher. That's having a lot of heart."